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ADDRESS 



JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL 



ANNUAL MEETING 



^mnmit)un'm eolont^atiow Society, 



OCTOBER 25, 1838. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED BY WILLIAM STAVELV, 

No. 12 Fear street. 



1838. 



-r^/ 



Sir, — I have the honour to communicate the following re- 
solution passed by the Board of Managers at their meeting 
last evening. 

" Resolved, That the thanks of this Board be presented to 
the Hon. Joseph R. Ingeksoll, President of the Society, for his 
very able and interesting address delivered at the annual 
meeting of this society, and a copy of the same be requested 
for publication." Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

THOS. BUCHANAN, 

Cor. Sec'y. 
Colonization Rooms, 8th Nov. 1838. 
Hon. Jos. R. Ingersoll, Pres't Penn. Colonization So^ 
ciety. 



r^ 



ADDRESS. 



The wide Atlantic separates us from the European world. 
Yet neither distance nor diversity of interests prevents a fre- 
quent and familiar intercourse. We are gainers by the ex- 
perience of older nations in every department of science, in 
every variety of art. We profit by their wisdom ; we study 
and apply to our own institutions their languages, literature 
and laws. We imitate their customs, adopt their fashions, 
improve by their instructions, delight in many of their refine- 
ments, and make use of all of their advantages which we can 
render available to ourselves. We are able even to derive 
benefit from their errors by endeavouring to avoid them, if 
similarity of habits, and a degree at least of advancement in 
the same career of civilization, might threaten to identify 
them among ourselves. Their religion is our religion. Their 
tastes are in most respects our tastes. Their inventions are 
more than theoretically and experimentally ours. The ci- 
vilization and refinement, the power and the productions of 
Europe are but the growth of one portion of a vast region, 
widely distant from ourselves, and embracmg no less than 
three quarters of the globe. To that advanced and cultivat- 
ed portion of it to which we are especially allied we can make 
but inadequate returns. The balance of commercial exchange is 
not more uniformly against us than the debt we owe for com- 
forts and elegancies which pervade every part of civilized 
society. We have little to restore in kind for the natural 
overflow of long accumulating wealth, and almost superhuman 
skill. 

Yet the nice sensibility which feels the force of unrequited 
obligations, need not suffer long under the burthen of national 
benefits not directly paid for, while the great cause of civili- 
zation affords a vent for gratitude. Improvement is not like 
the tide which flows and ebbs in one unvaried channel, the 
recipient alike of its onward and its retiring course, but re- 
sembling rather a continued current, it seeks new objects of 
association, and changing in perpetual novelty its direction 



and its bed, gives to remoter and remoter regions the afflu- 
ence it began to gather at its source. The same Atlantic 
which forms no barrier to an easy intercourse with one sec- 
tion of the old world, flows alike between us and another. 
But the separation, similar in its nature, and scarcely diflfer- 
ing in extent is far different in its effects. Except for pur- 
poses of trade the way that leads to Africa is comparatively de- 
solate and solitary. Her own great desert, more dreary and 
terrible than any other on the earth — the only Sahara — is 
scarcely less traversed by the curious or scientific traveller 
than the path between western Africa and these United 
States. Rich as that country is in the productions of nature, 
and attractive to the spirit of speculation and commercial 
gain in ivory and gold, in dye woods, oils and precious gums, 
and not deficient in productions which science would profit by, 
it has little to offer as the reward of mere curiosity, or to 
tempt the visits of the votaries of fashion. Yet navigation is 
as easy, dangers are no less readily subdued, experience and 
skill equally point out the unerring course, the pole star shines 
with undiminished brightness to guide the mariner, and 
breezes gentler and more balmy waft the wide spread sail to 
these almost forgotten shores. They are forgotten not be- 
cause they are difficult of access or insusceptible of receiving 
benefits, but because to the pursuers of pleasure or of gene- 
ral knowledge they have less attraction than is found else- 
where. There fashion and taste have erected no temples : 
science and art are almost literally unknown. No proud re- 
cord of a glorious ancestry is to be found among the forests : 
no historic monuments rise among the burning sands. 

Still enough remains to excite an interest for this unhappy 
country, although it be not of the character which renders 
the path to Europe like a beaten highway between neigh- 
bouring cities. The time is not distant when the ground on 
which we stand was the abode of barbarism. In imparting 
to a nation yet involved in deeper and darker ignorance than 
that which any part of the history of the American continent 
discloses, a portion of the light which has been happily shed 
upon ourselves, we discharge the obligation incurred by its pos- 
session. In inviting for ourselves a return of gratitude we pay 
the debt of gratitude we owe elsewhere. In diffusing the ad- 



vantages of our own condition we perform a sacred trust 
which every additional blessing has served to fix more firmly 
upon ourselves. We do more, much more. In furthering 
the great scheme of civilization there where it is so much 
needed, we redeem in part the discredit which every descen- 
dant from an European stock inherits in his paternal share of 
the fatal wrongs inflicted through a long course of years upon 
that benighted and injured land. 

For nearly twenty years American Colonization Socie- 
ties have been actively engaged in the promotion of this 
work. Deriving no pecuniary assistance from the general go- 
vernment, and with a single exception none from the several 
states, they have struggled in the zeal and energy of indivi- 
dual benevolence, and they have never faltered. Although 
confined^to no particular section of the country, sustained by 
no especial political party, identified with no religious sect, 
but planted and cultivated in every soil, made the common 
rallying point of otherwise divided public men, and receiving 
the countenance and sanction of every denomination of Chris- 
tians, the scheme has called for the untiring efforts of its im- 
mediate friends to give it effective existence. Large expen- 
diture of time, attention and money is an indispensable pre- 
requisite to its prosperity. Millions have been disbursed by 
the British government upon a sister establishment without 
reaching the results and confirming the hopes which have dis- 
tinguished the American colony. Appeals have been neces- 
sarily made from time to time to the liberality of a generous 
public for assistance ; and they have seldom been made in 
vain. In furtherance of a plan which its advocates know to 
be pure and just, and which they cannot doubt will be suc- 
cessful, this anniversary assembly is held. It is brought toge- 
ther at a time when kindred subjects have agitated the public 
mind, and when attempts have been made to confound them. 
More than ordinary inducements concur to render it espe- 
cially proper, that an occasion should now be embraced that 
will separate the society from falsely imputed alliances and 
hostilities, and bringing forth even in tedious repetition argu- 
ments and explanations which have been advanced a hun- 
dred times, will at length vindicate its true and cherished cha- 
racter. 



6 

American colonization neither proposes nor effects by any 
of its measures the continuance, or the immediate abolition of 
slavery. Its scope is wide enough, its labours are sufficiently 
arduous and complicated, without assuming more than its es- 
pecial duties. Of its ultimate consequences every one may 
judge, for it has no concealement or disguise in its movements 
or its aims. Probably most of its advocates contemplate in 
its distant operation a certain means of escape from that 
which, (speaking as the humblest but not the least ardent of 
the number,) I believe to be a political, a social, and a moral 
evil ; but which (evil as it is) may be rendered a far bitterer 
and less remediable curse by unwise and premature attempts 
to eradicate it. No scheme that ever came from human 
hands is so wide as to embrace universal melioration. No- 
thing but the divine religion of the Saviour can comprehend 
even in the outline all the lawful purposes of men. If at- 
tempted by less than immortality, the futility of the practical 
execution must mock the ill judging enterprise. This society 
proclaims its intentions in a word. Upon its banners, which are 
the badges only of peace and good will, is inscribed G)loniza- 
TiON. In that one word is embraced all that it directly does. 
For the descendants of an African stock who are able and 
willing to seek the land of their ancestors, it provides the 
means and the opportunity to emigrate. On their arrival 
there it furnishes them congenial associates and a conge- 
nial home. It gives them genuine liberty, a consciousness of 
equal rights with all that surronnd them, independence of re- 
straint except as it is regulated by subordination to good mo- 
rals and the law, and a superiority to the necessities and the 
inducements of vicious conduct. 

If these direct and positive provisions open wide the door 
to a thousand indirect and incidental blessings, that which is 
happy in commencement will be in the development of pros- 
pects, and consummation of reasonable hopes, more than glo- 
rious. 

When, in the annals of modern history, has there been a 
period that did not create or increase a debt to Africa, which 
repentance in those who were its authors never could, and re- 
muneration from their posterity never can, effectually cancel ? 
Among the multiplied races of this extended continent, from 



the proud Castilian to the self-righteous Anglo-Saxon Wood, 
which of them does not feel its nerves thrill with horror at 
the recollection of the deeds of crying wron^ done at no re- 
mote day, by a detestable traffic in human beings, a perver- 
sion of manldnd into merchandize, a profit and per centage 
calculated upon the excess of mortal misery and groans? 
This system of enormous cruelty cannot be charged to the 
people of the United States, for it existed in its most atro- 
cious extremity before they were a people. The reproaches 
which are its consequence, its remote but inevitable conse- 
quence, are cast with an ill grace hy a nation which began, 
continued and profited by the original sin. They are cast 
with the least apology upon a nation, the embryo elements of 
which again and again flung back the fatal dowry. It was 
at length fastened on them and their descendants by the power 
and perseverance of the parent country, which continued to 
gather without remorse the harvests watered by the tears of 
slavery as long as they were her own, and since she has 
ceased to be the gainer by the productions of her colonies, she 
has made the reluctant inheritance a theme of increasing 
obloquy. " The unjust, wasteful, and unhappy system was 
fastened," says a late excellent historian, "upon the rising 
institutions of America, not by the consent of the corporation, 
nor the desires of the emigrants ; but, as it was introduced by 
the mercantile avarice of a foreign nation, so it was subse- 
quently riveted by the policy of England, without regard to 
the interests or wishes of the colony." [Bancroft's History of 
the U. S.] If there be error in the continuance of slavery, 
whatever may be the circumstances of humanity that miti- 
gate it ; if there be condemnation for holding men in bondage^ 
however dire and inevitable may be the necessity, and how 
deadly soever the effect of precipitate emancipation ; what 
shall be said of the policy which forced it into existence ? If 
the descendants of an African stock cannot without shame be 
protected as they are, until, in the course of divine Provi- 
dence, the necessity for protecting them, and incapacity on 
their part to dispense with it shall cease together, what deeper 
shame must brand the nation that could forge the chains for 
native Africans? Prompted by motives of unmingled base- 
ness, the civilized and educated have seduced the ignorant 



and barbarous to fire the habitations of their countrymen, to 
seize the young and vigorous, and leave the infirm to perish, 
and then without remorse or pity to pack the wretched vic- 
tims of a blood-stained avarice in polluted vessels, there con- 
signed to death ; or, if they escape the less calamity, doomed 
to a hopeless and thenceforth hereditary bondage. The Por- 
tuguese, French, Dutch, Danes, and English, have vied with 
each other in efforts of skill to give effect to these barbarities. 
For a series of years, long before the American Revolution, 
more than a hundred thousand natives were thus annually 
torn from their homes, their friends, and their freedom. The 
country of our especial ancestors, England herself, fitted out 
at one time, from her three chief ports, a hundred and thirty 
vessels, ninety of them from Liverpool alone, and made and 
carried off 40,000 slaves in a year ; far more than her 'due 
proportion of spoil. These were not generally captives in 
war, who might, perhaps, be regarded by a specious and self- 
deluding sophistry as exchanged from one kind of slavery to 
another. They were, for the most part, inhabitants of peace- 
ful villages, free as the air they breathed. A fatal ship, we 
are told, would anchor in the Senegal or the Gambia — her 
preparations being made, a signal from her decks, the sound 
of a musket, or the doubling of a drum, stirs up the fearful 
onset. Cottages become the prey of flames, lighted by hands 
that should have guarded them but for the allurements of the 
white man, which consist of the appropriate rewards of guns, 
gunpowder, and intoxicating liquors ; and the flesh that can 
be coined is seized and manacled, and the rest is cast like 
dross into the fire. 

Let it not be supposed that these practices, or the effects 
of them, require for their existence European co-operation, 
or even that they are the growth of modern times. Caravans 
of dealers in negro slaves are recorded on the earliest pages 
of history. They were victims to the cruelty and treachery 
of their countrymen in the brighter days of Egypt and Phoe- 
nicia, of Greece and Rome. 

The enlightened policy of modern days has condemned the 
trade as utterly iniquitous. The glory of having led the way 
in abolishing it belongs to the government of the United 
States. Their statute of prohibition, of 2d March, 1807, was 



the first that ever was enacted in Christendom. England se- 
conded, but only seconded, the great act of national humani- 
ty. Different laws have since been passed to make effectual 
the suppression. It has been judicially declared to be con- 
trary to the Law of Nations. An act of Cougress of 1820 
makes the offence in any shape, committed by an American 
citizen, or by any person on board of an American vessel, 
piracy, and inflicts upon the perpetrator the punishment of 
death. Public sentiment every where holds it up to the exe- 
cration of mankind. Still it flourishes, and will continue to 
flourish, until something more persuasive even than the law, 
more immediate in its application than public sentiment, can 
be provided. These may frown upon, condemn, and punish 
it. But frowns, condemnation and punishment, imply actual 
and atrocious existence. Nothing can effectually cure the 
evil but that which shall prevent it altogether : which shall 
render impracticable the desperately wicked workings of the 
heart, that are not to be counteracted by the fear of punish- 
ment. It originates in barbarism. By planting along the 
coasts of Africa, where it abounds, and giving them strength, 
settlements which shall diffuse civilization with its power and 
its knowledge, the mschief is corrected and may be annihi- 
lated at its source. 

Of whom can these settlements consist ? Look around. On 
every side and in the midst of us, is a population in many re- 
spects different from ourselves. I will not stop to discuss the 
question, whether the difference consists in original and inhe- 
rent separation between primitive stocks of mankind, which 
must render the dissimilarity for ever insuperable ; or whe- 
ther climate and soil, and the adventitious circumstances that 
belong to them, may in the course of ages have gradually pro- 
duced distinctions, which the long lapse of after ages might 
gradually do away. The better arguments derived from phi- 
losophy and revelation, point to the unity of the great pa- 
rental source of human existence. If it be so, how long con- 
tinued and how powerful must be the causes that give to 
identity the seeming and the elFect of irreconcileable differ- 
ence. Nature and circumstances exhibit one of the two great 
classes into which men are now certainly divided — as pilgrims 
and strangers here. It needed not the^«/ of the law to make 
2 



10 

them so in reality. But the decree has gone forth ; and^ 
whatever doubts may have heretofore existed, the doom is 
pronounced in a voice of thunder. Political equality is for- 
bidden to the African race by a fundamental law. Social 
rights never could belong to them except in an imperfect and 
limited degree. They are denied by the stern and irreversi- 
ble decree of nature herself What is the inevitable conse- 
quence ? Why that the African population is colonized al- 
ready ^ colonized in the heart of the land of their birth, in the 
centre of their earliest and only recollections. Surrounded by 
privileges of which they cannot partake, dazzled with hon- 
ours which they cannot aspire to, or insensible to them, regu- 
lated, if not oppressed, by power, from the exercise of which 
they are totally excluded ; holding their property and lives by 
laws which none of their kind can create, alter, construe, or 
administer, with which they have nothing to do but to obey 
them — they cannot fail to regard themselves and to be re- 
garded as alone in the midst of their brethren. All the hopes 
which ordinarily give zest and dignity to the enjoyments of 
private life are darkened. An honest pride in the conscious 
importance and public usefulness of themselves or their chil- 
dren, the influence of station, the rewards of science, the glo- 
ries of war, and the political distinctions attendant upon a state 
of peace, are denied to them. If the effect be not to render 
them vicious and corrupt (and I will not avail myself of sta- 
tistics to prove the fact) it is at least to render them degraded. 
The soul cannot expand to the proportions which justly be- 
long to it, the intellect cannot grasp the food which is calcu- 
lated to nourish and invigorate it, when restrained by these 
more than adamantine bars. If it be true that opportunity 
alone is wanting to enable the mind to burst through the im- 
pediments which are supposed to accompany an African com- 
plexion, that opportunity never can be found where habit, in- 
terest, prejudice, pride, sense and sensibility, combine to pre- 
vent its exercise. 

True friendship to the coloured race consists in aiding them 
to escape from this worst species of slavery, the thraldom of 
the mind. Happily the escape from one class of evils will be 
attended with no danger of falling into another. There is a 
promised land. Scarcely less full of hope and happiness than 



11 

the sanctified inheritance of the Jews, found, at last, after a 
long and vexatious bondage. It is the land of their fathers, 
and the heart will naturally turn towards it as the depository 
of the bones of their ancestors. It is the climate which, con- 
genial and appropriate to them, forbids the permanent and 
successful encroachment of the white man. All history points 
out the impossibility of a harmonious and effectual combination 
of essentially distinct races as one people. Nature prescribes, 
philosophy explains, and experience confirms the truth of the 
universal separation. Need we look for it beyond our own hori- 
zon, darkened as it is with the remnants of the Indian tribes 
retiring from the presence of European contamination? or be- 
yond even the ground we occupy, where not a vestige re- 
mains of its aboriginal owners of a century and a half ago, ex- 
cept their dishonoured graves. Where any thing like harsh- 
ness of treatment exists the separation amounts to utter ex- 
tinction. In the Sandwich Islands, we learn, very recently, 
that in fifty years, in consequence of the destructive effects of 
white intercourse and civilization, every trace of native blood 
will have been extinguished. The complexion which an Afri- 
can sun gave to the ancestor, is borne by the descendant as 
proof of his proper destination. The brighter hue of an Eu- 
ropean stock demonstrates the propriety and the necessity of 
a separation. An admixture of African with African is wise 
and natural. 

With his capacity to enjoy a tropical climate he will find 
every thing concurring to promote his happiness. A soil fer- 
tile and productive beyond the experience of an inhabitant of 
more northern latitudes, resembling the rod of Aaron, which 
budded, blossomed, and bore fruit together. Perpetual sum- 
mer, yielding its balmy gales, redolent with fragrant flowers 
and prolific in wholesome fruits. An extent of country afford- 
ing ample scope for wide-spread population, and every em- 
ployment which taste may direct or peculiar faculties prefer. 
Above all, an elevation in the scale of human being, which a 
removal from the benumbing influence of a superior class, 
and a consciousness of self-preserving dignity, cannot fail to 
give. 

If a doubt should exist as to his capacity for self-govern- 
ment, let his over-zealous friends reflect how fatal is that 



12 

doubt to his desired elevation here. Or let all remember that 
the time has been when portions of Africa gave instruction to 
the world. The scholars and philosophers of Greece paid 
their visits to the fountains of knowledge in -Ethiopia and 
Egypt, as regularly as the disciples of learning at Rome after- 
wards sought it in the Grecian cities. Tradition is not wanted 
to prove their supremacy in art. Go to Cairo, Memphis, and 
the hundred gated Thebes. Monuments of taste and elegance 
still are found which proclaim to the traveller the humiliating 
truth, that all the boasted splendour of Europe shrinks from a 
comparison with the productions of an African antiquity. 

These relics of ancient art are not to be found on the west- 
ern shores that have been selected as the receptacle for the 
colonists from America. Their turn for advancement and 
civilization is yet to come. He that has observed the course 
of improvement, knows that the proudest hopes and most bril- 
liant enjoyments are destined to comparatively short duration. 
That the sphere of distinction is perpetually changing ; and 
that population and its incidents are disposed to seek new re- 
gions to display their extent and power. Not one indeed of 
the ancient communities has continued to sustain its dignity 
and influence. Not to speak of those of which scarcely a 
vestige remains to tell where once their lofty towers mocked 
the heavens — of Babylon and Nineveh — of Troy and Car- 
thage — of Sidon, the pride of Phoenicia — or, her sister city 
Tyre, then the Queen of Nations, now a rock on which fisher- 
men spread their nets — of ancient Edom, a city carved in 
solid rocks, yet even her tombs are tenantless. What are mo- 
dern Rome and modern Athens compared with the ancient 
cities of those names ? Where was the most magnificent capi- 
tal of Northern Europe, perhaps of modern times, the favour- 
ite and the pride of the Czars, where was St. Petersburgh in 
the days of Pharoah and of Ptolemy? The Gulf of Finland, now 
glittering with the reflection of her gilded spires, presented 
far less attractive and hospitable shores than the fertile banks 
of the Mesurado or the rich plains that compose the colony of 
Liberia. 

They whom I have the satisfaction on this occasion imper- 
fectly to represent, are influenced by no motives but those of 
an enlarged and liberal humanity. It would ill correspond 



1 o 
io 

■^vith the feelings which actuate them, if the invitations they 
hold out were attended with any peculiar perils to their con- 
fiding colonists. The country is generally well protected by 
natural barriers. The whole western and almost the whole 
eastern coast is rugged and inaccessible ; towards the north 
spread the great deserts, and at short distances from the ocean 
thick forests are impenetrable to human energy. The spot 
which has been selected for their abode was once the heart 
of the slave trade. One of the motives for the selection was 
the hope now fully realized, that Christian settlements would 
there at least supplant barbarism and cruel idolatry, by in- 
troducing knowledge and the purity of a better faith. Re- 
sidence there has long since ceased to be an experiment. Ig- 
norance or fraud once led to exposure to disease from 
causes which were readily ascertained and are easily avoided. 
A territory stretching nearly three hundred miles from the 
river Montserado, along the coast towards the south, has be- 
come by fair and equal contract with the native occupants, 
the property of the colonies and the sanctuary of freedom. 
Opportunities have been afforded to impress adjacent tribes 
with profound respect for the skill in arms of their newly es- 
tablished neighbours, without serving to inspire a taste for 
warfare or a thirst for conquest, and they have gained and 
secured tranquillity as they have gathered strength. As many 
as ten thriving and populous towns, destined one day, it is 
hoped, to become flourishing cities, the centre of independent 
but confederated republics, from Monrovia at the Northern 
Cape, to the Maryland settlement at Cape Palmas, at the south- 
ern extremity, lie scattered along the coast, or on the borders of 
rivers at inconsiderable inland distances. The citizens of 
these rising commonwealths already number about five thou- 
sand, and are on the gradual increase. Of these less than 
thirty are whites, who are connected with missionary or edu- 
cation societies, or attached as physicians to the colonies. 
About 3500 are denizens from the United States, and 1500 
are natives, who have identified themselves with the emi- 
grants. Different projects have been conceived for accelerat- 
ing their increase. That which was suggested in a neighbour- 
ing State, of manning vessels altogether with persons of co- 
lour to be employed in transporting passengers, has been 



14 

countenanced by many intelligent and distinguished individu- 
als. One that partakes more of a mercantile character, the 
formation of a trading company dealing in the precious com- 
modities of the country, has originated among ourselves. Lit- 
tle danger is apprehended from the tardy grox^th of popula- 
tion, which will increase as rapidly as means exist for its 
transportation and temporary support. 

Although the patronage and constant assistance of the so- 
cieties in this country are given to the colonies, their local 
direction is confided for the most part to councils and magis- 
trates, who are themselves (except the governors) coloured 
emigrants. A cheering progress has been made in all the arts 
that minister to the comfort and enjoyment of life. Perma- 
nent buildings are erected for dwelling houses, ware-rooms and 
work-shops, and are occupied as such. Schools have been 
established and are successfully taught. Eighteen churches, 
consecrated to the worship of the true God, occupy the sites 
of groves which were the scenes of impure rites and human 
sacrifices, and they are well attended by the inhabitants. 
Public libraries are founded and in exercise in two of the set- 
tlements ; and as a decisive proof of combined liberty and 
civilization, a printing press is in active operation, from which 
is issued a well-conducted and instructive gazette. Those 
who are inclined to peruse its unpretending columns, prepared 
by a negro emigrant from Virginia, himself the immediate 
child of slavery, will discover, perhaps, in the decent and 
well-regulated spirit of self-respect and respect for others 
which animates them, matter of laudable imitation for some 
of the more experienced brethren of the craft in the parent 
country. A well-organized and disciplined militia exists, the 
elite of which consists of still more carefully trained and equip- 
ped volunteer corps. At Rassa Cove and Cape Palmas the 
sale and use of ardent spirits are forbidden by law, and pub- 
lic sentiment every where effectually discourages them. A 
coasting trade is actively carried on : and, in imitation of their 
American friends, the merchants of Liberia have recently had 
cause to regret that they too have overtraded themselves to 
their detriment. Like other civilized communities they are 
said to have had their difficulties about a proper monied cir- 
culation, although not a single bank exists in their extended 



15 

territory. Barter has proved inconvenient and impracticable 
as the sole medium of exchange and payment. Specie com- 
posed of precious metals would not long remain among the 
colonists, but would speedily be paid away for imported goods. 
Baser coins would but degrade the standard of value. A 
neighbouring Society has therefore determined to experiment 
in a new sort of paper money. As it is to circulate among the 
Natives, who have not all advanced far in education, and to 
whom reading might be a task, it will partake of a hierogly- 
phic character, each denomination of notes indicating upon 
its face its current value. On the five cent certificate is en- 
graved a head of tobacco. The ten cents bear a chicken. The 
twenty-five cents, a duck. The fifty are graced with a pair 
of ducks ; and the dollar emission is adorned with the effigies 
of a goat. 

Some idea may be formed of the encouragement afforded 
to agriculture, as well as of the resemblance which exists be- 
tween them and ourselves in the mode of giving efltet to the 
encouragement, from the original hand-bill, headed Liberia 
Agricultural Society, now before me. It proclaims the " reso- 
lutions adopted, and articles agreed upon, at a meeting of the 
citizens of Liberia, held at Monrovia, on Tuesday the 16th 
May, 1837." The object of the society is declared in the 
first resolution to be " primarily to enter unitedly and vigor- 
ously into the cultivation of the sugar cane and the manufac- 
ture of sugar ;" and the second resolution fixes the fund to be 
raised at five thousand dollars, and the price of membership 
at a sum not exceeding J^SOO, nor less than ten dollars. A 
constitution follows, consisting of thirteen judicious and well 
written articles. Another public meeting of a still more in- 
teresting and imposing character was held not long before, for 
the express purpose of making known to the world the views^ 
of the citizens respecting African colonization. Resolutions 
were moved and eloquently sustained by different individualSj,. 
some of whom are indicated as reverend clergymen, and are 
represented to be men of piety and attainments, and one of 
whom, Mr. H. Teage, is said to have made considerable pro- 
ficiency in the highest departments of classical literature. A 
significant resolution declares their entire contentment witb 



16 

their condition, and that they should consider a return to the 
United States the greatest calamity that could befal them. 

Besides the harmonious association which appears to pre- 
vail among the colonists themselves, opportunities for the most 
satisfactory and beneficial intercourse with the inhabitants 
even of the remote interior is afforded by the commerce 
which is carried on with native traders. Employment also is 
given to the people of the immediate neighbourhood who have 
been found to be for the most part an inoffensive, laborious 
and hardy race. Different savage tribes have occasionally 
invoked the mediation of the government of Liberia during 
their sanguinary wars. The circle of benevolent and useful 
example thus perpetually and imperceptibly expands. The 
work of the pious missionary becomes comparatively easy. 
The sublime but mysterious doctrines of a divine religion ex- 
empUfied in the industrious, peaceful, sober and cheerful lives 
of thousands are taught with happy and certain effects. 

Compare a condition manifested by almost any of the par- 
ticulars which have been thus enumerated with that of the 
first and most favoured community of coloured persons in the 
United States, and can there be a doubt which should be pre- 
ferred ? Compare the condition in every particular with that 
of any other colony that ever existed at a similar stage, and 
the doubt is even more easily resolved. No argument or ob- 
jection that it is still a colony, and that here is the home, the 
natale solum of its people, will be countenanced for a mo- 
ment in the United States. We are a country of colonists, 
and shall continue to be so for ages. Colonists, not merely in 
lineal descent from original wanderers, not merely in contri- 
butions hourly received from hoary headed and over stocked 
states and kingdoms, which swell the ranks of population and 
give character to it, but in voluntary habits among ourselves. 
Every inch of ground in the interminable solitudes of the far 
west is destined to become the scene of perpetual coloniza- 
tion hereafter, as every thriving and populous commonwealth 
in the nation has been already formed and strengthened upon 
its basis. 

Never was there a country that stood more in need of 
every kind of light than Africa. Ignorance is always the 
companion of vicious, or at least of unprofitable inclinations. 



17 



It is a sure means of temptation, and a mark for the attacks 
and impositions of evil designing men. But various causes 
have combined to render this sunny land the abode of deep 
rooted superstition, and of barbarous and bloody practices. 
An ardent temperament gives to the tropical mind a disposi- 
tion to be credulous, which may lead it into the extremes of 
error ; and a constitutional lassitude disposes to timidity, which 
if not overcome occasions baseness in the humble and cruelty 
in the exalted. All the knowledge that these poor negroes 
have until recently acquired of another and a more powerful 
state of society has inspired them with detestation and dis- 
trust. From the earliest periods of their dark tradition, 
strangers have been man stealers ; the robbers of their off- 
spring, the cruel hunters of their parents and their best be- 
loved and most cherished companions. Let it not be sup- 
posed that with his other inferiorities the African is behind- 
hand in the capacity to suffer. How could he distinguish be- 
tween the approach of the humane instructor, if he ever came 
to enlighten him, or of the innocent traveller, if he occasional- 
ly penetrated into his country, and the visit of his extermi- 
nating enemy ? All were regarded alike as ministers of evil. 
Accordingly, the harmless stranger, and the self-devoted mes- 
senger of the gospel have been looked upon with eyes of 
jealousy, and each of them has fallen beneath the blow of the 
assassin. The load of superstition and ignorance which has 
buried these fertile fields has been permitted to accumulate, 
for the catalogue of wrongs which has been heaped upon the 
occupiers of them has increased for ages. Hence the usages 
of civilized life, the advantages of science, all that adorns, and 
all that softens the asperities of human nature, have been un- 
known. Whatever has been learned has tended to degrade 
and brutalize the manners instead of elevating the under- 
standing and purifying the heart. Theft, which is ordinarily 
a vice confined to society where property is possessed and co- 
veted, has existed here in its most terrible and odious extre- 
mity where property is scarcely known, and it is ferociously 
exercised upon the persons of the wretched victims of Euro- 
pean cupidity, which encourages and promotes the crime. 
Wholesale barbarities are committed as the mere effect of 
stupid and misguided fanaticism. In some of the countries of 

3 



18 

the west the funeral obsequies of the sovereign are celebrat- 
ed with thousands of human sacrifices. Human sculls com- 
pose the favourite ornaments of the palace and the temple, 
and the ghastly pavement of the sleeping apartment of the 
king. The conqueror in battle eats the flesh and drinks the 
blood of his captive enemy; and as the last proof of utter and 
unfeeling barbarism, the female character is used only for the 
convenience of her companions, and her person is abused or 
immolated for his safety. Women are occasionally impaled 
to propitiate the goddess who is supposed to preside over rain, 
and the monarch whose dominions are unknown beyond their 
own narrow limits, surrounds himself with three thousand 
wives who are only so many slaves. 

To redeem a vast country from these and similar marks of 
extreme degradation may, it is fervently hoped, be the happy 
effects of the settlements at Liberia. Travellers who have 
visited them extol the plan, and the manner in which it is exe- 
cuted. Impartial reports from our own naval officers uni- 
formly confirm the wishes of their friends, and predict from 
them the happiest consequences. Unqualified approbation 
has been expressed by writers and visiters not connected with 
our own country, by statesmen and philanthropists of France 
and Germany. They even who are naturally disposed to look 
with favourable eyes upon the corresponding British esta- 
blishment at Sierra Leone acknowledge its inferiority to the 
American colonies ; and one of them at the head of the finan- 
ces of England, declared in parliament that he considered the 
founding of Liberia as one of the most important events of the 
century. 

Should all other ends fail, an appeal for protection and sup- 
port cannot be disregarded, when it speaks in behalf of an es- 
tablishment around which as a centre, civilization and improve- 
ment must continue to grow. If it can be supposed that the 
effect of African colonization will be imperfect here, in the 
country where it originated, and where its value and impor- 
tance were deemed to be urgent, who can doubt its results 
elsewhere ? The rays of light which it is shedding upon the 
benighted regions around it are the brightest harbingers that 
ever visited an unhappy land. But humanity pleads in the 
same cause in behalf of the negro who is under legal bondage 



19 

here, as emphatically as she does for the slave of ignorance 
and barbarism abroad. His emancipation has many a time 
awaited the means of emigration, and in the course of time it 
may depend more and more upon it. A large portion of the 
present slave holding portion of the United States is fast dis- 
pensing with that kind of labour. The experience of states 
possessed of similar advantages in soil, who have long depend- 
ed exclusively upon the hands of freemen for its cultivation, 
proves that they do not want it. Virginia with her fertile 
uplands, Maryland with her fine grain growing fields, Ken- 
tucky with her capable soil and sturdy yeomanry, and other 
powerful commonwealths, will sooner or later yield to the con- 
viction that cheaper and better services can be procured. 
Cheaper than that which incurs the risk of loss and unneces- 
sary expenditure during the sometimes lengthened periods of 
infancy, infirmity and old age. Better than that which turns 
the furrow with reluctant hands, and has nothing to hope 
for beyond the nightly rest that succeeds the performance of 
a daily task. When the labour of the negro shall of choice 
be dispensed with in certain latitudes, will kindness to him be 
indulged in furthering his removal to new empires in the dis- 
tant south, where he may be needed for the peculiar culture 
of the soil, and where his bondage may become hopeless and 
interminable 1 It requires no distant or doubting anticipation 
to predict for him the alternative of Texas or Liberia — of 
slavery or freedom. 

The enemies of colonization — yes, a scheme so full of be- 
nevolent purposes and practical good, has its enemies ! have 
enjoyed the suggestion, and even its friends have entertained 
anxiety at the doubt, that if the utmost success should crown 
its efforts the result may be illusory. Emigration it is sup- 
posed cannot under any circumstances keep pace with even 
the natural increase of the coloured population, and if it should, 
millions may still remain to prevent the desired consequences. 
Were all this true, enough would remain besides the motive, to 
make the system worthy of support. Would it be nothing at 
the end of half a century to look back to, that feelings and prin- 
ciples had been infused into Africa which had softened the con- 
dition, and would in the fulness of time effect the regenera- 
tion of a hundred and fifty millions of the human family? 



20 

Would it be nothing that even the frightful augmentation of 
the coloured race at home, now advancing at the rate of sixty 
or seventy thousand a year, had been checked and perhaps 
neutralized? that a contributory means had at least been 
found that greatly aided in the total separation of incongrous 
races, and if you please, in a final and gradual emancipation ? 
that it had stimulated by its example to the development of 
other plans, that combined with African colonization would 
lead to a perfect accomplishment ? Great objects will cer- 
tainly be gained, even if collateral objects remain for collate- 
ral means. Improvement will be effected in the condition of 
a whole race of human beings. Payment will be made in 
part at least of a debt incurred by our European ancestors. 
The slave trade will be crippled. Africa in her rudest re- 
gions will be civilized. Some of the warmest friends of colo- 
nization, and among them one who has been truly regarded 
as the best friend of the negro, one that did more for the ex- 
tinguishment of the slave trade by English law than all Eng- 
land put together, (Wilberforce perhaps excepted,) Thomas 
Clarkson, have been content that it should stop with this par- 
tial execution of its great designs, and leave the rest to the ef- 
fect of a bright example. But a better understanding of the 
subject refuses to yield a particle of the argument. Is it here 
that we are to doubt upon the limits of emigration ? Where 
we welcome to our shores yearly as many emigrants as would 
rapidly melt away a mass equal to the whole of our coloured 
population, and they too not aided, encouraged, urged ; con- 
verted from bondage to liberty, made men instead of chattels 
of, changed from outlaws into makers and administers of law ; 
but coldly encouraged or positively prohibited to depart, pro- 
vided with no means, assured of no immediate support, stimu- 
lated by no wounded pride or mortified ambition. Let the 
general government continue its parental care over the ocean 
journey, and the coasts of new America ; let the four and 
twenty states provide, as each of them may well do, an annu- 
al stipend for the cause, and let individual liberality (which 
never fails) indulge its natural tendencies, and at the end of 
thirty years there would remain no coloured freeman who de- 
sired to seek the home of coloured freemen ; there would re- 
main np slave whose master desired to be relieved from the 



21 

irksome and by that time the peculiar possession. Coloniza- 
tion would fills its office to the brim. The failure, if it exist- 
ed, of entire accomplishment, would arise from dill'erent and 
independent circumstances. Means of transportation should 
he supplied. 

It must be recollected that the great difficulty of every no- 
vel undertaking consists in its commencement, and that has 
been overcome. A door has been opened which demonstrates 
that the enterprise is practicable. If the voice of invitation 
that is uttered be still and small, it speaks in accents of bene- 
volence, and it cannot fail to reach the hearts of millions. 

Not the least extraordinary of the embarrassments at this 
time thrown in the way of colonization consists in the opposi- 
tion derived from remote and irreconcileable directions. The 
abolitionist of the north condemns what he regards, by some 
obliquity of mental vision, a compromise with slavery^ and in- 
sists as the only measure which can be brought in any way 
to bear upon the subject, an immediate and universal eman- 
cipation. The slave holder of the south, in not a few in- 
stances, irritated at first by a denial in theory of what he deems 
perfect rights, looks coldly upon projects and refuses his alli- 
ance to them, which he thinks may lead to practical interfe- 
rence. One party in the blindness of mistaken zeal rivets the 
chains which it proposes to remove. It wastes its strength in 
futile struggles, and withholds from others the allowance for 
motive, and the Christian charity which it claims exclusively 
and largely for itself. The other turns in indiscriminating 
anger upon friends and foes, and persuades itself into opinions 
which are wild and visionary. A word of explanation may 
not be inappropriate to each extreme. 

Were the utmost hopes of abolitionism to prosper, and each 
individual held in bondage to become instantly his own mas- 
ter, what would be the consequence? If you withdraw from 
some the obligation to serve, you remove from all the duty of 
protection. That bond once cancelled, what is to become of 
the old, the young, the infirm, the ignorant, in a word, of all, 
for all are embraced in these four classes ? If all are well dis- 
posed, and strange must be the constitution of their nature if 
they are thus above the character of men, the mass are im- 
potent. If instruction has been unduly withheld, the power 



22 

•which it might have conferred of self preservation, still is 
wanting. But imagination sickens at the thought of more than 
two millions of persons, loosened as it were upon societies some- 
times less populous than themselves, in which they have no share 
except the recollection of real or fancied wrongs, stirred up to 
madness by the belief that their liberation has been wrong- 
fully delayed. Is there not incalculable danger that the first 
effort of its accomplishment would be to signalize the triumph 
by the suffering of their oppressors? In such a struggle the 
battle must be to the strong, and the ignorant and the fee- 
ble must be victims of no merciful and reluctant punishment. 
The result would exhibit a scene not unlike the ocean after 
a destructive storm, subsided indeed, but subsided into a calm 
scarcely less terrible than its preceding tempest, where the 
tranquil surface of the waters every where reflects and multi- 
plies the images of desolation. Mutilated fragments of ship- 
wrecked property floating with lifeless forms of men in fear- 
ful union, the hopes of the virtuous perished, and the desires 
of the wicked accomplished, are but the emblems of what 
must succeed a sudden wreck of the southern institutions. 

Of the feelings of a people who may be thus exposed to the 
dire necessity of exterminating others, or of being themselves 
exterminated, not a word of complaint is to be uttered. But 
that judgment surely errs which can regard slavery as more 
than a necessary evil. Nothing but a determination to op- 
pose a spirit of ultraism by a corresponding spirit can convert 
it into a benefit or a blessing. This is not the time to agitate 
unnecessary discussions, and this is not the occasion on which 
slavery in its abstract requires either defence or accusation. 
The discovery however is recent which would claim for a sys- 
tem ancient almost as authentic history, preponderating ad- 
vantages. It must not be forgotten, that cordially as support 
is given here to colonization, and active and anxious the co- 
operation it receives, yet the first suggestions which gave sub- 
sequent existence to the system originated in the south. A 
resolution is found in Virginia legislation as early as January 
16th, 1802, which authorizes the governor to correspond with 
the president of the United States for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a place without the limits of the same to which free ne- 
groes or mulattoes, and such as may be emancipated, may be 



23 

sent or choose to remove as a place of asylum. Still earlier 
than this the president, (himself a Virginian, Mr. Jefferson,) 
had discussed the plan with reference to positions both within 
and without the limits of the United States on this continent, 
to the West Indies as a more probable and practicable re- 
treat, and to Africa as a last and undoubted resort. It was 
not until many years afterwards that the present system was 
proposed for actual adoption. Many of us can remember when 
by special appointment the late General Harper, (a native of 
South Carolina,) came from Maryland, the place of his resi- 
dence, to urge the junction of the people of this community in 
the efforts of colonization ; and it is worthy of recollection that 
a prominent topic of his elaborate address consisted of what 
he considered the evils of slavery ; and it formed an argument 
scarcely needed by his auditory, as conducive to the plan then 
in infancy for its gradual but certain extermination. 

But the interest in colonization, if it be properly regarded, 
will be found to be universal. It is confined neither to the 
north nor the south, it embraces the future as well as the pre- 
sent time. The child unborn will bless the day when it shall 
have won the esteem and combined the zealous efforts of eve- 
ry part of this wide spread empire. From the earliest mo- 
ment of the existence of our government, Negro slavery has 
formed a theme too delicate almost for discussion, and yet an 
object that required to be provided for, or the Union never 
could have been formed. From that time forth it has proved 
a copious source of bitter strife. In foreign countries where 
even the class of individuals who are the subject of slavery 
here, is scarcely found, the nature of the institution is little un- 
derstood. In many parts of our own nation all of the same 
class are free, and the effects of the institution are not duly 
appreciated or keenly felt. Difference of habit begets differ- 
ence of principles, and thus fixed in opposite and irreconcile- 
able sentiments, intelligence itself approaches the subject with 
a bias and a preconception which are inconsistent with sober 
argument. Certain it is that other points of difference have 
arisen among us, and have been forgotten. Local prejudices 
may be reconciled. Commercial or political preferences may 
be and have been compromised — wounded pride has been 
soothed — but the storms of negro slavery have seldom ceased 



24 

to rage. No sooner is one of thenn allayed than another is 
excited. Each succeeding shock which they occasion becomes 
fiercer and fiercer, until the whole political fabric is threaten- 
ed with ruin. Whether the particular occasion be the incor- 
poration of Missouri or the alliance of Texas — abolition in the 
District of Columbia or reception of petitions from slaves — no 
matter what the immediate incentive, the convulsive evil is 
still the same. In some places popular elections are governed 
by the question. In many, a candidate would scarcely venture 
to appear who differed from the prevailing sentiment of the 
particular latitude. These tendencies must be relieved or 
their results cannot fail to be disastrous. Yet let sagacious 
politicians and patriotic statesmen do what they may, they 
cannot produce cordial and lasting reconciliation. One only 
remedy exists. It consists in the tranquil, gradual, and total 
removal of the cause. Colonization is the redeeming spirit. 
In its persevering but patriotic efforts it will absorb the theme 
of controversy, and then, when strife has no longer food to 
nourish it, strife itself must perish. 

This is perhaps the only ground on which a reasonable hope 
can be entertained that slavery will cease. It is certainly the 
only ground on which its cessation can be sought for without 
tearing to pieces the constitution. That is a calamity which 
no citizen, blessed as he is with the enjoyments that every 
where surround him ; that meet him at every turn ; go with 
him as he walks abroad, like a mailed panoply ; and shed 
about him their balmy influence in his repose ; can contem- 
plate without anguish — which few citizens can promote by 
the weight of a finger, without violating obligations which 
reasonable men cannot forget, or honest men disregard. They 
are paramount to all others, save only those of nature and 
her God. They are connected even with the highest sanc- 
tion of religion itself. All who have been called on to dis- 
charge any of a large class of official or professional duties, all 
who have adopted the country as their own, have an oath to 
support its constitution registered in heaven. An eflfbrt to 
annul it is in them a disregard of law human and divine. It 
is a blow aimed at the chartered rights of thousands, at Ihc 
prosperity of unborn millions, at the peace, tranquillity and 
union of a whole empire. The man who is base or brave 



25 

enough to incur the odium, secures to himself a distinction 
without envy, an eminence without esteem. Should he be 
influenced by motives more urgent than those which fall to 
the lot of all, which give (as I acknowledge for myself) a pe- 
culiar, a paternal sanctity to that bond of union ; when he 
shall be withdrawn from these early scenes, and shall con- 
template the sublime mysteries of another state of being, he 
may behold with atfectionate interest the disembodied spirits 
of those who prepared the sacred instrument. Amidst that 
august and now complete assembly, for every one of them has 
gone to his account, should he chance to meet, what on earth 
he may have never witnessed, a frowning father there — the 
recollection of the single crime will absorb the impressions of 
his other deeds of good and evil, and calling on the mountains 
to cover him, he will seek concealment for his blighting 
shame. 



ANNUAL REPORT 

OF THE 

BOARD OF MANAGERS 

OF 

THE PENNSYLVAMIA COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



The Board of Managers in presenting their Annual Report 
would acknowledge, with humble and devout gratitude, the 
continued goodness of Almighty God, in preserving with 
guardian care the colonies of Liberia in peace and prosperity, 
and in crowning with signal success all the efforts in this coun- 
try for their advancement. 

But these mercies have been mingled with afflictive dis- 
pensations; and, while rejoicing in the triumphs of the cause, 
the Board have the sad duty of recording the loss of two of 
its most valued friends. 

Mrs. Sansom was distinguished in the Society of Friends, of 
which she was a member, and for many years a preacher, by 
her talents and great purity of character. The whole life of 
this admirable woman was a beautiful commentary on the 
sublime precepts of the Christian faith. Though endowed 
with a highly cultivated mind, and eminently qualified to 
adorn the elegant circles of refined society, she sought her 
chief pleasure in the hum.ble employments of charity, and, 
like her divine Master, loved rather to minister to others 
" than to be ministered unto." Her fortune was small, but 
she denied herself the common luxuries of life that she might 
gratify her enlarged liberality. Nor was she satisfied with 
merely giving ; the cause she knew not she searched out, and 
among the haunts of poverty and the abodes of wretchedness 
her familiar visits brought joy and consolation to the destitute 
and afflicted. With gentle zeal and modest assiduity, through 
a long life " she went about doing good," and at last ceased 
from her labours full of years and full of good works. 

The unfortunate children of Africa occupied a large share 
of her benevolent heart, and the colonization cause, from its 
very origin, was peculiarly dear to her. She loved it and 
served it through good report and through evil report, and 



28 

when, in the last years of her life, her declining health com- 
pelled her to circumscribe the round of her labour, Liberia, 
and its miniature counterpart, the Coloured Shelter which she 
had established in this city, divided her affections and care. 
To this Society she left a legacy of $1000. 

William Kirkpatrick, Esq. was the President of the Lan- 
caster County Colonization Society, and one of the Vice Pre- 
sident of this Society. This gentleman was a member of the 
Presbyterian church, and extensively known throughout the 
State as an upright man, a devout and consistent Christian, 
and a liberal philanthropist. In no benevolent enterprize 
were his generous feelings more warmly enlisted than in that 
of colonization. In the days of its infancy, while just strug- 
gling into existence, he espoused it with ardour, and ever af- 
terwards, to the close of his life, gave it his steady support. 
As he served it while living, so at his death he manifested the 
continuance of his attachment by a handsome testamentary 
bequest. 

Though these two excellent persons are now removed from 
the world they delighted to serve, their good works live after 
them; and in the influence of their example as in the fruit of 
their alms deeds, they still speak a language to which the liv- 
ing should give earnest heed. 

In the last report of the Board of Managers of the Young 
Men's Colonization Society it was stated that arrangements 
had been made to efiect the union of that institution with the 
Pennsylvania Colonization Society, under the name and char- 
ter of the latter. In making their first report since that union, 
the Board deem it proper to give a concise history of the 
Young Men's Colonization Society and of the Colony of Bassa 
Cove from its commencement to the present time. 

The Young Men's Society was formed in this city in April, 
1834, from the following considerations: 

1st. A belief that a direct appeal should be made to the 
benevolence and Christian zeal of Pennsylvania, in favour of 
the establishment of a new colony upon the Coast of Africa. 

2d. The necessity of prompt measures to carry into effect 
the will of Dr. Aylett Hawes, of Virginia, by which he manu- 
mitted more than a hundred slaves on condition of their be- 
ing sent to Liberia. 

3d. The carrying into practice in the new colony certain 
principles of political economy, as the fostering with greater 
care the agricultural interests, checking the deteriorating in- 
fluence of petty and itinerant trafficing, maintaining the vir- 
tue of sobriety by obtaining from the colonists a pledge of ab- 
stinence from ardent spirits ; and by withholding all the com- 
mon temptations and means for carrying on war, or for en- 



29 

gaging in any aggressive steps upon the native population of 
Africa. 

Instructions vvere inrimediately sent to Africa to purchase for 
the society a suitable tract of land for their purposes, at Bassa 
Cove. Accordingly a small strip of land, extending from the 
mouth of the St. John's river, on its south side, about three 
miles along the sea shore, was purchased from the native pro- 
prietor, king Joe Harris. Bassa Cove, and the whole region 
around it known by the name of Grand Bassa, has been from 
time immemorial the centre of extensive slave dealing. And at 
the time of the purchase a slave factory vi^as standing within 
a short distance of the scite of the proposed colony. 

In October of the same year, the Society despatched a ves- 
sel from Norfolk, with the emigrants freed by Dr. Hawes, and 
stores for their use. Circumstancs connected with that expe- 
dition (which have before been detailed) compelled the So- 
ciety to hurry its departure before the necessary arrange- 
ments could be made, which the security of the emigrants de- 
manded. Consequently, on arriving at Bassa Cove they were 
injudiciously established, without the means of defence, and 
widely separated from each other. 

In this situation the natives, instigated by the slavers and 
excited by the hope of plunder, fell upon the settlement, at 
midnight, murdered about twenty of the people, pillaged and 
burned their houses, and drove the wretched survivors, at the 
point of the spear, into the surrounding woods, whence they 
afterwards escaped to diflferent parts of the old colony, sick, 
wounded and despairing. Such was the disastrous termina- 
tion of the first attempt to colonize Bassa Cove. 

The painful intelligence of this sad overthrow of their ar- 
dent hopes so far from discouraging the Board, excited them 
to redoubled efforts. In an incredibly short time another ves- 
sel was fitted out, at a great expense, with military stores, 
arms, clothing and food, and all the necessary means for re- 
establishing the colony. This vessel, the Independence, sail- 
ed from this city on the 22d November, 1835. 

The New York City Colonization Society having united 
with the Young Men's Society, a joint commissioner was ap- 
pointed to take charge of the relief expedition, with directions 
to collect the scattered emigrants and re-commence the colony 
at such place as should be found the most eligible. The com- 
missioner, clothed with full power to organize a government 
and to treat with the native tribes, arrived at Monrovia on 
the 1st of January, 1836, where he remained only so long as 
was necessary to obtain the requisite information relative to 
the state of things at Bassa Cove, and to collect the emigrants 
who remained in that and the neighbouring settlements. On 



30 

the 8th he sailed for Bassa Cove, where he arrived the next 
day, and immediately commenced landing the people and 
stores at the public warehouse, built for the society's use the 
year previous, which had providentially escaped the general 
destruction. Here Gov. Skinner had, about two weeks be- 
fore, in anticipation of the relief expedition, established, tem- 
porarily, a number of the fugitives, and commenced some 
slight works of defence. 

A much more advantageous scite was now selected, about 
three miles distant, at the mouth of the St. John's river, where 
it was determined to commence the new settlement ; and the 
same day the three-fold work of clearing the ground, laying 
out the town, and removing the people and stores from the 
old warehouse and the vessel, was begun. All was bustle 
and activity, and the scene presented was novel and exciting. 
The passing and returning boats — the eager bands of women 
and children hurrying to and fro with their light burdens — 
the different parties of men all earnestly engaged — here build- 
ing a rude hut — there felling a lofty tree — some clearing 
paths and carrying the surveyor's chain — others keeping 
guard with gun and bayonets. On one side the cheering yo 
heave chimed with the shout of the Kroomen, as they hove 
out some heavy box or case from the boat — on the other side 
the sound of the axe and the hammer mingled with the merry 
laugh or song. Such was the gathering of that little band 
upon a distant and barbarous shore, with the unbroken forest 
in their front, and the illimitable sea behind them. With this 
day commenced the history of Bassa Cove. 

In two weeks the people, nearly a hundred in number, were 
all comfortably sheltered in their Uttle cabins, the goods 
landed and stored, and the good brig Independence on her way 
homeward. 

The commissioner remained nearly a year engaged in ad- 
justing the domestic affairs of the new colony and settling its 
relations with the neighbouring tribes. At the time he left, 
peace had been restored with the natives, and some of the 
nearest tribes had bound themselves to abandon the slave 
trade, in which they had been engaged for ages. The colony, 
which had received an accession of seventy-eight emigrants 
by the arrival of the brig Luna, was in a flourishing condition. 
The tangled forest had disappeared, and a smiling village had 
taken its place. Public buildings had been erected, streets 
opened, gardens planted, and all wore the air of neatness and 
thrift. The people, grateful for the comforts of home and the 
prospects of independence, were eager in testifying their obe- 
dience to the laws, and zealous in maintaining the government 
which had been established for them. 



31 

The same pleasing features of industry, order, and con- 
tentment, still characterize that interesting colony ; and its 
history from that day has been one of continued and almost 
uninterrupted prosperity, reflecting the highest credit on its 
citizens, and affording a striking illustration of the ready 
adaptation of the African character to new and difficult cir- 
cumstances, and its capacity for improvement. 

By a negotiation with the native proprietors, the commis- 
sioner, a short time before his departure from the colony, ac- 
quired possession of a valuable tract of territory lying around 
the bight of the cove and adjoining the former purchase. 
This tract extends along the sea coast ten or twelve miles, 
and inland indefinitely. The acquisition of this territory gives 
the colony jurisdiction over the only place accessible to the 
slavers, and will prove eventually of great importance as the 
scite of a sea-port town. 

In December, 1836, an arrangement was made with the 
American Colonization Society, by which all the territory in 
the vicinity of the St. John's river, on its northern bank, be- 
longing to that Society, was ceded to the affiliated societies 
of New York and Pennsylvania. This included Edina, a vil- 
lage containing two hundred and fifty souls, situated on the 
right hank of the St. John's river, three-fourths of a mile from 
Bassa Cove. Subsequent purchases from the native chiefs 
have exfended the territory a considerable distance along the 
sea coast and the river banks. 

Early in the year 1837 the union already alluded to be- 
ween the Young Men's Colonization Society and the Pennsy- 
vania Colonization Society took place, and in June of the 
same year this Board fitted out the schooner Charlotte Har- 
per, and despatched her from this city with supplies for the 
colony at a cost of ^10,500. In this vessel the Rev. John J. 
Matthias, who had been appointed governor of the colony, 
sailed with his wife. They were accompanied by Dr. Wes- 
ley Johnson, assistant physician to the colony, Davis Tho- 
mas, mill-wright; Miss Annesley, Miss Beers and Miss 
Wilkins, teachers, and Dr. S. M. E. Goheen, physician to the 
Methodist mission at Monrovia. Four emigrants also embark- 
ed for Bassa Cove. 

Of this little company two fell early martyrs to the holy- 
service in which they had engaged. Mrs. Matthias and Miss 
Annesley both died in a few months after their arrival, and 
within two or three days of each other. These pious mis- 
sionaries were intimately attached to each other in this coun- 
try ; together they consecrated themselves to the cause of Af- 
rica, and were together called from the field which they had 



32 

barely been permitted to enter and survey. " In their lives 
they were lovely, and in death they were not divided." 

In November last this Board, in connection with the New 
York Society, despatched the barque Marine to Wilmington, 
North Carolina, where she received on board seventy-two 
emigrants for Bassa Cove. The General Agent of this society 
who was charged with the business of fitting out the expedi- 
tion, experienced the kindest attention, and the most liberal as- 
sistance from the citizens of that state. In gathering the 
emigrants for embarkation many touching incidents oc- 
curred of mutual attachment and parting regrets between 
the freed men and their former masters. One of these is wor- 
thy of special mention. 

James Brown was the favourite servant of an excellent 
lady, who had reared him from childhood under her personal in- 
spection. The interest which had led her to take special care 
of his infancy, and to watch with parental diligence over his 
early education, had grown with his maturing years into a firm 
and confiding attachment, and in her declining years he was 
her constant attendant, her adviser, her friend and the staff 
of her old age. 

Under the good influence of his pious mistress, James too 
had become a Christian, and in the strict integrity of his charac- 
ter and the faithful discharge of every duty, he illustrated the 
holy principles of his faith, and obtained the confidence and 
esteem of all who knew him. But his wife and children were 
slaves. He had married early in life the slave of a neigh- 
bouring planter, and now when he saw his interesting family 
growing up about him, his cup of happiness was embittered 
by the reflection, that the wife of his bosom and the children 
of his care were in bondage, and might at any moment be torn 
from him by the will of another, and doomed to a hopeless se- 
paration. He heard of Liberia, and he immediately besought 
his mistress to intercede for the freedom of his family, and to 
send them and him to that country. At first the feelings of 
the good old lady were wounded, and she wept at his suppos- 
ed ingratitude in wishing to leave her, but when she under- 
stood the full scope of his request, her generous heart responded 
to it, and she at once promised to use her influence in effecting 
the object of his wishes. In a few days she announced to him 
her complete success in procuring the freedom of his wife and 
six children. Then having provided amply for their comfort 
on the voyage, she presented him with four hundred dollars as 
an outfit, and prepared to bid him a final adieu. But this 
was a trial almost beyond her strength. The noble determi- 
nation which had hitherto supported her, at the moment of 
its consummation gave way, and for a time she indulged her 



33 

grief in a flood of tears. But again the heroine triumphed 
over the woman, and she gave them a parting blessing as they 
left her to join the expedition at Wilmington. 

This expedition arrived in safety, and at the latest advices 
all the people were doing well. Louis Sheridan, the leader 
of the company, took up six hundred acres of land, and com- 
menced operations as a farmer with the same promptness and 
energy which had so distinguished him in his extensive busi- 
ness transactions in North Carolina. When last heard from 
he had a hundred men employed in his service clearing land, 
planting, building, &c. The whole cost of the expedition 
was about ig7000. 

Early last spring Governor Matthias commenced a new 
settlement on the St. John's river, about six miles from Bassa 
Cove, to which was given the name of Bexley, in honour of 
Lord Bexley, the President of the British African Coloniza- 
tion Society, from which a donation had been received for its 
establishment. 

This settlement, from its inland and elevated situation, and 
the peculiar agricultural advantages which it enjoys, forms a 
valuable addition to the colony, and by enlisting the sympa- 
thies of its powerful patrons in England promises to open a new 
source of revenue to the good cause. 

The colony in its incipient state labours under many disad- 
vantages from the want of the necessary means to open roads, 
erect mills, and construct other works of public utility. It 
cannot be expected that emigrants, arriving in the country 
poor, and often burdened with large families, can for years, even 
in that highly favoured region, do much beyond what their 
private interests require. The Board have laboured to supply 
this want as far as their limited resources would allow ; and in 
this effort they have been nobly seconded by the colonists. 
By the Charlotte Harper, machinery was sent out for the con- 
struction of a wind saw mill ; but in consequence of the un- 
expected return of Mr. Thomas, who had been employed to 
superintend its erection, this important work was delayed for 
some time. The timely assistance of Dr. Johnson, however, 
whose mechanical skill enabled him to take charge of it, pre- 
vented its being abandoned, and the gratifying accounts of its 
progress under the direction of that gentleman, at the last ad- 
vices, leave no doubt that the colony is now enjoying the be- 
nefit of its successful operation. 

Mr. Matthias returned to the United States in June last, 
leaving the colony in the temporary charge of Dr. Johnson as 
acting governor. About the same time Dr. Robert McDow- 
ell, who had been engaged as colonial physician at Bassa Cove 
since the first days of its establishment, came to this country 
5 



34 

on a visit. The health of both of these gentlemen is good, 
though the former went to Africa with an impaired constitu- 
^ tion, and the latter encountered there for four years all the 
privations and exposure of a new settlement. 

It is with no ordinary pleasure that the Board, after the 
additional experience of twenty months, are able to repeat 
the statement made in the report of the Young Men's Socie- 
ty, that " Bassa Cove is not only relatively but actually 
healthy." The remarkable exemption of the first settlers 
from disease will be recollected by all, and though since then 
the Board have at times been called to mourn over the death 
of valuable members of that interesting community, they have 
the gratifying assurance that generally the people have en- 
joyed good health. Excepting the illness to which newly ar- 
rived emigrants are subject, which, with proper care and 
suitable medical attendance, may in most cases be passed 
with safety, the colony is as healthy at all seasons as any 
part of our own country. This remark applies with very lit- 
tle exception to the other parts of Liberia, as the medical re- 
ports of Cape Palmas and Monrovia, and the statements of 
individuals visiting those places fully testify. 

Every years experience is counteracting the popular pre- 
judice which has invested the climate of Liberia with a mys- 
terious and fearful terror ; and if multiplied and well substan- 
tiated yac/5 shall be allowed to weigh against vague rumours 
and malignant fabrications, there will not long be a doubt on 
the public mind, that the citizens of Liberia do not only enjoy 
as good health, but are as capable of endurance as the people 
of any land under the sun. 

The Managers have no desire to conceal any of the real 
difficulties which lie in the way of the emigrant. On the con- 
trary, they have ever been careful to make known the worst; 
especially are they particular in informing those most inte- 
rested of all they have to encounter. But, after all, they be- 
lieve these difficulties are only such as are common to all new 
countries — such as were experienced in a ten-fold greater de- 
gree by the early settlers of this continent, and even now by 
the hardy pioneers of the western backwoods. These tempo- 
rary evils should not be regarded as objections to the cause. 
The coloured man who fears to meet them is unworthy to en- 
joy the high honours and enduring rewards to which they 
lead. The period of acclimation once passed, Liberia affords 
a most desirable residence. The unvarying mildness of tem- 
perature — the purity and sweetness of atmosphere — the fresh 
breezes and the bright skies, render the climate delightful to 
the feelings and greatly favourable to health. Every where 
the eye rests on the most attractive scenery, embellished and 



35 

, decorated with gorgeous magnificence. The varied landscape, 
with its level plain and undulating upland — the broad river, 
fringed with picturesque trees — the deep forest, with its rich 
crowning foliage — the gayly tinted flowers — the voice of birds 
and the balmy fragrance of the air, all give to an African 
scene a magic charm, and awaken feelings of unwonted en- 
thusiasm Here, too, spring reigns in her young bloom with 
perpetual serenity, and nature, ever producing yet ever reno- 
vating herself, yields in continuous succession her most luxu- 
riant fruits. 

Such a country, with a soil of singular fertility and a cli- 
mate adapted to the growth of nearly all the productions of 
temperate regions, and the most valuable of the tropics, pos- 
sesses unequalled facilities for agricultural pursuits. To this 
branch of industry, as that most essential to individual and na- 
tional prosperity, the Board has at all times directed particu- 
lar attention, and they are happy to announce that the colo- 
nists have exhibited a corresponding interest in this important 
subject. Some of the first settlers have nobly triumphed over 
the various obstacles of the wilderness, and are now enjoying 
a comfortable independence from the fruit of their fields. 
Every man in the colony, it is believed, has now a part at least 
of his land under cultivation ; and during the past season there 
has been a good supply of native produce in all the settle- 
ments. A large number of coffee trees have been planted re- 
cently, and ere long the plantations of Bassa Cove will com- 
pete in our markets with those of Java and Mocha. 

In some of the older settlements of Liberia, the numerous 
inducements to engage in trade have hitherto diverted most 
of the enterprize from the surer business of agriculture, but 
sounder views are now beginning to prevail, and the earnest- 
ness with which many are turning from their shops and ware- 
houses to their neglected fields, promises the best results. 
Whatever temporary causes may disturb the progress of this 
interest, there can be no doubt that Liberia will eventually be- 
come rich and powerful through the medium of her vast agri- 
cultural resources. The day is not far distant when the sta- 
ples of that country will form the basis of an extensive and 
lucrative commerce ; and the ships of Europe and America 
will exchange at her wharves their various commodities for 
her rich cargoes of cotton and coffee — sugar, gums and spices. 
In no country in the world can those valuable productions be 
cultivated with more ease or in greater perfection, and no 
where can the means of subsistence be obtained more readily 
for a labouring population. 

The coffee of Western Africa has been found to be superior 
to every other kind, and the plant is much more productive 



36 

there than elsewhere. The same may be said of her sugar 
and cotton, and the richest gums are peculiar to her forests. 
Add to these the other articles of trade which, in their spon- 
taneous profusion almost without the labour of man, already 
freight scores of ships, and pour a continuous tide of wealth 
into England, France, and the United States ; and the man 
of common business calculation will readily see what import- 
ance must attach to the commerce of that country, when an 
industrious and enterprising population shall cover her luxuri- 
ant plains and possess the treasures which abound in her 
woods and lie buried in her mountains. 

It may well be regarded, even now, as a question of great 
practical moment to the mercantile interest of our country, 
whether the necessary means should not be furnished for open- 
ing at once the trade of Liberia, and thus anticipate the ef- 
forts of other nations to turn its current in a different direc- 
tion. But the philanthropist too is deeply concerned in this 
matter. The development of the resources of Liberia will 
give an impulse to the cause of colonization of irresistible 
power. When the vast sources of wealth within her bor- 
ders are fairly opened, her progress will no longer depend on 
the uncertain and fluctuating aid of charitable contributions, 
but, self-sustained, and dependent on her own energies, she 
will move forward naturally and with ever increasing speed. 
Her manifold advantages will be made known, and as the 
theatre of successful exertion, she will become attractive to 
the enterprising coloured man. Commercial intercourse will 
facilitate emigration; and with the increase of ships and the 
cheapness of emigration increasing numbers will embark, 
until the tide of emigration will set as strong and steadily from 
these shores to Liberia as it now does from Europe to this 
country. 

The same general prosperity which has been ascribed to 
Bassa Cove is enjoyed in the older colonies of Liberia — the 
high standard of morals, and the strict attention to the ob- 
servances and duties of religion which have so often called 
forth the admiration of strangers, still distinguish those orderly 
and well-regulated communities. Animated by the feelings 
of freemen, and inspired with the noble desire of giving to 
their oppressed race a home and a free inheritance, the peo- 
ple of Liberia manifest a patriotic devotion to their new coun- 
try alike honourable to themselves and productive of the most 
happy results. 

Unceasing attention has been given by the friends of colo- 
nization to the interests of religion and education, as the only 
sure foundation of the institutions of freedom and the only 
means of human happiness and salvation. The great propor- 



37 

tion of pious people among the colonists, and the missionary 
zeal of the various religious societies of our country, have se- 
cured most liberally the means of Christian instruction, as the 
numerous churches and sabbath schools, and the many faith- 
ful and devoted ministers of the gospel found through the co- 
lonies fully testify. 

Though some of the neighbouring native tribes have been 
engaged in wars \^ith each other during the past year the co- 
lonies have remained tranquil, and their friendly intercourse 
with the natives continues undisturbed. In one or two re- 
cent instances the authorities of Monrovia thought it neces- 
sary, in the vindication of the rights of its citizens, to enforce 
existing treaties, by declaring certain portions of territory, 
belonging to adjacent tribes, forfeited to the colony. The 
Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society, 
however, in pursuance of the humane policy which has ever 
governed them, refused to sanction those acts, and promptly 
ordered the restoration of the land in question, choosing ra- 
ther to sutTer wrong than inflict injury where their sole ob- 
ject is to confer benefits. 

The cause of education has been principally under the care 
of the ladies of this and other cities to whom it owes its chief 
support and management. The Board would do injustice to 
their feelings, did they not express the admiration with which 
they regard that untiring benevolence which has sustained 
and animated those amiable philanthropists in their work of 
heavenly mercy through years of difficulty and embarrass- 
ment. They have planted schools in every settlement, where 
hundreds of the children of the colonists and natives receive 
instruction. 

The period has now arrived for the establishment within 
the colonies of an institution which shall afford the means of 
more extended education, that the youth may be qualified for 
the important stations they are shortly to fill in the commu- 
nity. The increase of population, the rapidly developing 
powers and extending interests of Liberia, furnish imperious 
claims for a thorough system of education. The time has fully 
come for laying the foundations of an academic institution 
which shall ultimately grow into an university. Every days' 
progress increases the necessity of this work, and the friends 
of the cause must act promptly and efficiently for its accom- 
plishment if they would not see all that has been already 
achieved jeoparded. 

The slave trade, though banished from the whole line of 
coast over which the jurisdiction of the colony extends, is still 
prosecuted with vigour at several points in the neighbour- 
hood. This cruel traffic, which for three hundred years has 



38 

spread desolation and dismay over the fairest portions of Af- 
rica, has received its first effectual blow from the colonies of 
Seirra Leone and Liberia, and must eventually, as those colo- 
nies multiply and extend their influence, entirely disappear. 
But that event might be greatly hastened by the co-operation 
of the United States government, whose assent seems alone 
wanting to ensure the speedy termination of that infamous 
trade. At present she stands in the humiliating attitude of 
protecting that system of outrage and murder, which nearly 
every other Christian nation is leagued to destroy. Her 
proud flag floats above the deck of the slave vessel, and the 
guilty trader is shielded by its broad folds from the just pe- 
nalty of his crimes. 

The governments of England, France, Spain, Portugal, 
Denmark, Sardinia and Brazil have by treaties conceded to 
each other the mutual right of search within certain geo- 
graphical limits, for the suppression of the slave trade, and re- 
solved mutually to aid each other, and to use their best en- 
deavours to induce the other powers of Europe and America 
to agree to the terms of their convention. By the refusal of 
our government to enter into this arrangement, though ur- 
gently solicited by France and England conjointly, the efforts 
of other nations are rendered to a great extent nugatory. 
The slaver of any nation has but to hoist American colours, 
and his human cargo floats in safety even under the very guns 
of the British cruiser ; and as American men of war are sel- 
dom seen in the African waters, this is the common expedient 
of the renegadoes and outlaws who prosecute this vile business. 

By joining this truly holy alliance, the United States would 
give efficiency to the operations of the whole, would rescue 
her flag from the unhallowed uses of the slaver, and put an 
€nd for ever to this disgraceful and odious commerce. But 
should she still stand aloof from the European powers, she may 
do much towards this good purpose by acting in connection 
with the American colonies. The great and growing influ- 
ence of Liberia with the native tribes, her numerous facili- 
ties for collecting information, and her capacity for acting 
against the establishments on shore, render her a most im- 
portant ally in this righteous war. A moderate annual ap- 
propriation, and a small armed vessel placed at the disposal 
of the colony, or acting in concert with it, would ensure the 
destruction of the slave "trade from the Gallinas to the Bight 
of Benin. An object of such momentous consequence, involv- 
ing the claims of justice, humanity, and the truest policy, it is 
to be hoped will receive due attention from the government, 
and that our country which was the first to pronounce that 



39 

detestable traffic " piracy" may win the immortal honour of 
consummating its destruction. 

Directing their attention to the state of the cause of colo- 
nization in this country the Board find every thing to gratify 
and encourage them in their labours. At no period of its his- 
tory has the cause been so well sustained, and never has the 
increase in the number of its friends been so rapid as during 
the past year. Notwithstanding all the efforts of its enemies 
to mislead and prejudice the public mind, the principles of 
colonization are becoming more and more diffused, and a strong 
and abiding conviction of its paramount excellence is spread- 
ing through the land, and will ere long become the sentiment 
of the whole nation. 

The evidence of this advancement is seen in the actual re- 
sults of the year. 

Since the last report there have been despatched to Libe- 
ria EIGHT expeditions and nearly five hundred emigrants. 
Besides emigrants, each of these vessels carried out large sup- 
plies for the use of the people in the colony, public improve- 
ments, &,c. As the season for the departure of fall expedi- 
tions is near at hand it may be proper to include with the 
above the three or four that are expected to sail in a few 
weeks. 

The Mississippi Colonization Society has recently com- 
menced a colony on a valuable tract of land at the mouth of the 
Sinou river, about midway between Bassa Cove and Cape 
Palmas. This tract from its central position and fine harbour 
promises to become an important link in the bright chain of 
Christian colonies which is stretching along that dark coast. 
The patronsof this new colony, with a princely liberality, have 
already placed at the disposal of the society fifteen thousand 
DOLLARS, which they have pledged themselves to continue an- 
nually. Their general agent, in a letter received this week, 
says:— " Our future prospects for emigrants from Tennessee 
and Kentucky are very good. Many hundreds having been 
emancipated for that purpose, who will I hope ere long be 
ready to go." 

The Louisiana Society is at this moment engaged in the 
preliminary work of of founding a colony on the left bank of 
the river Sinou, opposite to that of Mississippi. Instructions 
have been sent to Africa to purchase the land, and ere long 
the friends of Africa will behold from another point the ban- 
ner of civilization waving in triumph over scenes rescued from 
the dominion of barbarism. 

In Virginia, where so much has been done for the good 
cause, measures have for some time been in progress for com- 
mencing a new colony, but are not yet fully ripe. A large 



40 

amount of funds have been contributed to the American Co- 
lonization Society from that State during the year. 

An increased zeal seems to prevail in New Jersey. A large 
State Convention was held at Trenton in July last, which re- 
sulted in the organization of a State Society, the appointment 
of a General Agent, and other suitable measures for exciting 
a general interest and enlisting the active exertions of her 
citizens. 

From Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee, assurances, 
which cannot be doubted, are frequently received of an unu- 
sual and growing attention to the claims of colonization ; but 
though numerous local societies have been recently organized, 
no general societies have yet been formed or efficient mea- 
sures taken to develope and combine the strength of those 
states. 

Maryland deserves more than the passing notice that can 
be here given to her. In her legislative capacity, as in the 
private acts of her citizens, she has given a noble example of 
philanthropic liberality to her sister States ; and the colony 
she has founded will remain an enduring monument of her en- 
lightened benevolence. Enjoying a large annual appropria- 
tion from the State, and receiving a liberal revenue from 
private contributions, the Maryland Society has been able to 
carry on her operations more regularly and to meet the wants 
of her young colony by more appropriate expenditures than 
any other society which has undertaken a similar work. The 
result is seen in the flourishing condition of Cape Palmas, 
where a population of about five hundred rejoice in the 
possession oi freedom and all its attendant blessings. 

In New York the contributions to the cause have very far 
exceeded those of any former years ; and recent movements 
in different parts of the state promise a still more hearty and 
general interest in its behalf. A gentleman of high standing 
in Utica, writing to the Corresponding Secretary of this 
Board, under date of the IGth inst. says: " On the 25th ult. 
a society was formed for this county, (Oneida) at a meeting of 
gentlemen from all parts. On the 20th of Nov. we are to 
have a large meeting and proceed in right earnest to the work 
of enlisting the county in the cause. Mr. Foster, our member 
of Congress, is elected President of the Society, and he opened 
the subscription with his name for ^100 per year, for five 
years. Other large subscriptions will follow, and I think we 
shall come up handsomely to the work. The appearances of 
the colonization cause in central New York are, I think, en- 
couraging." 

But in no part of the country have the operations of the 
year been more productive than in Pennsylvania ; and the 



41 

Board experience peculiar pleasure in acknowledging the very 
liberal manner in which their eflforts have been sustained 
throughout the state. As an evidence of the support received 
they might refer to the two large expeditions already men- 
tioned, and to their Treasurer's report, which exhibits re- 
ceipts to the amount of ^19,000. This sum, large as it is, 
has been wholly inadequate to the wants of the Society, 
which, though exercising the strictest economy, has subject- 
ed itself to some embarrassment in its extraordinary efforts in 
behalf of the oppressed. 

Much more, however, has been accomplished than the 
mere collection of money. The public mind has been enlight- 
ened, and in many places revolutionized in favour of the 
cause. Scores, if not hundreds, who formerly were, through 
misapprehension of its principles, opposed to the Society, have 
become its warm and active friends. Nearly fifty town and 
county auxiliary societies have been formed, embodying a 
large share of the intelligence and moral worth of their re- 
spective districts, and a number of permanent contributors 
have been obtained. 

These gratifying results are attributable in a great mea- 
sure to the zealous and faithful labours of the agents of the 
Board, who have traversed the State, explaining the princi- 
ples of the cause and enforcing its claims. Special commen- 
dation should be awarded to the continued and laborious ex- 
ertions of Mr. Pinney, the agent of the Pittsburg Colonization 
Society in Western Pennsylvania. Every where these agents 
have been received with favour, and their efforts in many in- 
stances warmly and efficiently seconded by resident friends 
of the cause. In different parts of the state voluntary lo- 
cal agencies have been undertaken by individuals at their 
private expense with great success. 

The circulation of the Colonization Herald, a weekly pa- 
per published by the society, has contributed in a good degree 
to awaken interest in behalf of the cause, by diffusing correct 
information, and keeping before the public mind, in their 
proper connexion, the facts and arguments which illustrate 
the progress and influence of colonization in its various bear- 
ings on the interests of this country and Africa. 

Not the least pleasing fact which the Board have to an- 
nounce is that the coloured people of this state are beginning 
to investigate for themselves the subject of colonization, and 
no longer satisfied with the stale calumnies which have so 
long been rung in their ears about the " persecutions of the 
Society" and the " pestiferous golgotiia of Liberia," they are 
applying to purer sources of information, gathering facts from 
those whose personal experience qualify them for instructors. 
The consequence is that applications have been received from 
6 



42 

about 70 persons, resident chiefly in the agricultural districts, 
for passage to Bassa Cove. As they have ail furnished testimo- 
nials of good moral character and industrious habits, the Board 
will extend to them the means of emigration by their first ex- 
pedition from this port. The same thing is occurring in other 
parts of the country. The Board of Managers of the Mary- 
land Society, in their last report, say, "A great change has 
evidently taken place among the free people of colour within 
the last year, and when the expedition was in preparation, 
there were upwards of one hundred and twenty applicants for 
a passage to the colony, eighty-five of whom were sent." 

One of the most gratifying results of colonization is, that just 
in proportion as its success is established and its tendencies il- 
lustrated in the view of the southern slave holders, the pro- 
gress of emancipation is extended and the facilities for con- 
ferring its highest benefits upon the freed are multiplied. At 
no time has this happy influence been more frequently exem- 
plified than during the past year, and the various societies ex- 
perience great embarrassments on account of their inability to 
meet the overwhelming number of applications. 

" In Maryland," says the Society's report, " the number of 
slaves manumitted during the past year is 204, and since the 
enactment of the colonization law in 1831 is 1581." 

In the expedition sent by the societies of New York and 
Pennsylvania from Wilmington, there were nearly 60 manu- 
mitted slaves, whose freedom was entirely owing to the influ- 
ence of colonization. 

A gentleman writing to Dr. Proudfit of the New York So- 
ciety, from Tennessee, under date of Feb. 10th, 1838, says — 
*' I am a slave-holder, and intend freeing all my young co- 
loured people who are of good disposition, and give them up 
to the Colonization Society, with some ten or twenty thousand 
dollars to secure and pay their passage to Liberia." 

Last summer a gentleman died at New Orleans, having pro- 
vided by will for the emancipation of all his slaves, several 
hundreds in number, and appropriated the sum of one hundred 
dollars for the use of each. 

Capt. Ross, of Mississippi, left, at his death, all his slaves, 
170 in number, with an estate worth ^400,000, to the Ame- 
rican Colonization Society. Unfortunately there is a proba- 
bility in this and the last case mentioned, that the wills will 
be set aside owing to some informality. 

The late Mrs. Reid, of Mississippi, the daughter of Captain 
Ross, has bequeathed her whole estate, with 120 slaves, to the 
Mississippi Colonization Society. The estate includes her 
plantation, 300 bales old crop cotton, and the present crop, of 
probably equal amount. Mrs. Reid has also made provision 



43 

that if the will of her father, Capt. Ross, be broken, her share 
of his estate, one-third, shall be appropriated with the rest of 
her property in the manner just stated. 

A gentleman, residing near New Orleans, to whom allu- 
sion has been often made in the publications of the Board, has 
been engaged for years in the most praiseworthy manner, in 
i-nstructing and otherwise preparing his slaves, more than 
THREE HUNDRED in number, for freedom. In a letter to the 
Corresponding Secretary of the Board, lately received, he la- 
ments that his efforts have, for the present, been arrested in 
consequence of the feverish excitement produced by the over- 
heated zeal of some of our northern friends among the sur- 
rounding population. 

Numerous other instances like these might be detailed were 
it necessary, but it is sufficient to say that there are recorded 
at this moment on the books of the Society the applications of 
gentlemen, living in different parts of the southern country, 
whose slaves, to the number of one hundred and thirty, are 
offered as emigrants to Bassa Cove, provided the society will 
furnish the means necessary to meet the expense. 

Here is a case which appeals strongly to the benevolent 
feelings of our fellow citizens. A number of slave-holders 
offer to surrender property to the value of $78,000 for the 
blessed privilege of conferring the gift of freedom on a hun- 
dred and thirty of their fellow men. And they ask of the 
pious, the humane and the charitable of Pennsylvania, to aid 
them in doing it with the small suni of ^6,200. Many of 
these people are comparatively poor, and in liberating their 
slaves give up all they have, atid cannot possibly provide for 
any additional expense. Shall their appeal be denied? Will 
the rich and generous citizens of this free state refuse to their 
brethren of the South the small assistance required in perform- 
ing an act of mercy to the poor and the oppressed ? Where 
they sacrifice $600 they only ask us to contribute ^50. 

How many could give this trifling sum without either effort 
or embarrassment and thus procure the exalted luxury of do- 
ing good, and bestow upon a fellow creature the highest earth- 
Jy boon ! 

Oh! 'tis a god-like privilege to save. 
And he who scorns it is himself a slave ! 

The cause of colonization has now arrived at a period when 
its friends may reasonably rejoice in its triumphs, and congratu- 
late their country and the world on the certainty of its glori- 
ous consummation. Twenty-one years have rolled away since 
the scheme of African colonization, in an organized form, first 
laid its claims before the American people. Doubt and mis- 



44 

trust met it on its first appearance, and at every stage of its 
progress since it has been assailed by calumny, misrepresenta- 
tion and abuse. But despite the rage of malice and the sneers 
of folly it has gone steadily forward, removing every obstacle, 
triumphing over all opposition, and scattering blessings around 
its path, until at length it stands in the clear day, beautiful in 
its perfections and immovably fixed in the confidence of the 
nation. 

It has founded a new empire on principles of truth and 
mercy — it has planted the institutions of civilization amid the 
horrors of barbarism, and reared the Standard of the Cross 
above the pollutions of idolatry. It has kindled the light of 
hope on a continent hitherto enveloped in the gloom of despair, 
and given to a race long scattered and peeled an asylum of 
safety and an inheritance of freedom. It offers an easy me- 
thod of removing a foul curse from our country, while it ex- 
hibits to the world a stupendous illustration of practical justice, 
wisdom and benevolence. 

Through the operations of this scheme America may gain 
the proud distinction of being the renovator of nations, and 
perpetuate her glory in the grateful recollections of a regene- 
rated continent. 



APPENDIX. 



OFFICERS AND MANAGERS 



THE PENNSYLVAMIA COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 



PRESIDEjYT, 
JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL, Esq. 

VICE PRESIBEJVTS, 



Hon. JOEL JONES, 
H, A. BOARDMAN, 
G. W. BETHUNE, D. D. 
Dr. JOHN BELL, 
ELLIOTT CRESSON, 
Hon. WILLIAM SHORT, 
LLOYD MIFFLIN, 
GERARD RALSTON, 
C. C. CUYLER, D. D. 
S. H. TYNG, D. D. 
R. BABCOCK, D. D. 

w. A. McDowell, D.D. 

W. E. SHERMAN, 
GEORGE B. WOOD, M. D. 



Hon. WALTER FORWARD, 

CHARLES BREWER, Pittsburg. 

Dr. R. R. REED, Washington, Pa. 

JOHN BRECKENRIDGE, D. D. 

Hon. JOHN OWEN, N. C. 

JOHN McDONOUGH, N. Orleans, 

Dr. HODGKIN, 

GEORGE B. WOOD, 

M. CAREY, 

W. CHANCELLOR. 

SOLOMON ALLEN, 

J. DUGAN, 

JAMES WORTH, Bucks Co. 



CORRESPOJVBIJVG SECRETARY, 
THOMAS BUCHANAN. 

TREASURER, 
JAMES S. NEWBOLD. 

RECORDIJVG SECRETARY, 
CLARK CULP. 



MAJVAGERS, 



STEPHEN COLWELL, 
Dr. GEBHARD, 
WILLIAM WURTS, 
CHARLES E. LEX, 
Rev. EDMUND S. JANES, 
Dr. JAMES H. BRADFORD, 



JOHN S. RIDDLE, 
PAUL T. JONES, 
ROBERT B. DAVIDSON, 
THOMAS ELMES, 
JAMES BRUEN, 
EDWARD COLES. 



46 

List of Societies auxiliary to the Pennsylvania Colonization Society. 

The North East Colonization Society — organized Aug. 22, 1835. 
President — Henry Frkt, Esq. 
Vice President — John Brawley, Esq. 
Secretary — James D. Dunlap. 
Treasurer — Col. Clark Putman. 

Colonization Society of Alleghenytown— organized May 12th, 1836. 
President — John Irwin, Esq., 

Vice Presidents— Rev. T. J. Pressly, D. D., Rev. E. B. Swift, Rev, C. El- 
liott, Rev. L. Halsey, D. D., Hon. R. C.Grier. 
Treasurer — Alexander Temple, Esq. 
Corresponding Secretary — L. G. Olmstead, 
Recording Secretary — W. Wiley, Esq. 

Pittsburg Colonization Society— organized Aug. 20th, 1835. 
President — Hon. R. C. Grieb. 

Vice Presidents — John Snowden, Esq., James Veech, Esq., Mr. George 
Darsie. 

Secretary — Waiter H. Lowrie, Esq. 
Treasurer — G. R. White. 

Colonization Society of Washington county. 
President — Hon. Thos. M. T. McKeb-nan. 
Secretary — Robert R. Reed, Esq. 

Amivell — Has 49 members. Annual subscription $62 50. President, 
EzEKiEi. Clarke ; Secretary, Thaddeus Dodd, 

West Alexandria — Has 73 members. Annual subscription $226. Pre- 
sident, George Wilson ; Secretary, Andrewr Yates. 

Claysville — Has 36 members. Annual subscription not reported. Presi- 
dent, James Noble, Esq. ; Secretary, Daniel Rider. 

Upper Buffalo — Has 54 members. Annual subscription $112, *' vpith the 
addition of $10 from the young ladies of the Rev. Mr. Eagleson's congrega- 
tion, constituting him a life member." President, Wallace M'Williams, 
Esq. ; Secretary, Barclay K. McClain. 

Cross Creek — Has 45 members " all legal voters, more than 40 of whom 
are heads of families." Annual subscription $105. President, James Pat- 
terson ; Secretary, John S. Cratty. 

Florence — Has 66 members. Annual subscription $82. President, Ro- 
bert WiTHERow ; Secretary, John Kerr. 

Burgettstoivji — Has 58 members. Annual subscription, $71 56. Presi- 
dent, Wm. Vance ; Secretary, Robert Patterson. 

Mt. Pleasant — Has 17 members. Annual subscription $61. President, 
James Hughes ; Secretary, Andrew Hays. 

Millers Run — Has 30 members. Annual subscription $37 50. President, 
John Hats ; Secretary, William Simpson, jr. 

Mingo — Has 29 members. Annual subscription, $14 50. President, 
Rev. N. Shotwell ; Secretary, John Morrison. 

Pigeon Creek — Has 32 members. Annual subscription $61 25. Presi- 
nent, Hon. Jos. Lawrence ; Secretary, Samuel Hamilton. 

East Bethlehem — Has 50 members. Annual subscription $51. President, 
William Hopkins, Esq. ; Secretary, John Reed. 

Colonization Society of Roxborough — organized Oct. 9th, 1836. 
President — John Levering, Esq. 

Vice Presidents — William Flinn, Esq., Joseph Hoffman, Benjamin Miles. 
Secretary and Treasurer — James C. Kempton. 



47 

Colonization Society of Washington College — organized Dec. 22, 1837. 

President — J. Blanet. 

Secretaries — L. R. Hamill, W. H. Oldham. 

Williamsport Colonization Society — organized May 12lh, 1836. 
President — Hon.T. H. Baikd. 
Vice Presidents — Aaron Kerr, Rev. J. Mills. 
Secretary and Treasurer — J. Willson, Esq. 

Montgomery County Colonization Society — organized at Norristown, May 
16th, 1837. 
President — Wm. Powell, Esq. 

Vice Presidents — R. B. Jones, Esq., James M. Pawling. 
Secretary — Adam Slemmer. 
Treasurer — B. F. Hancock. 

Bucks County Colonization Society — organized at Doylestown, Aug. I5ih 

1837. 

President — James Worth, Esq. 

Vice Presidents — Hon. Wm. Watts, Hon. Samuel D. Ingham, Hon. John 
Brown, Anthony Taylor, Esq., Aaron Feaster, Esq., Stephen Wolston, 
Esq., John Miller, Esq., Hon. John Fox, Gen. John Davis, Dr. P. Jenks, Dr. 
Thomas Allen, Geo. Breck, Esq., Geo. Harrison, Esq., Dr. John H. Gordon, 
John Kirkbride, Esq. 

Managers — Lewis Coryell, Dr. Geo. Malsby, J. B. Pugh, William Paff, D. 
Y. Harman, Esq., Chas. Vanartsdalen, Sands Olcott, C. E. Dubois, Garrett 
Brown, E, Nicholson, C. V. Craven, Jonathan Leflerts, Robert Lott. 

Treasurer — Edward Yardley. 

Corresponding Secretaries — Joshua Woolston, R. C. Nagle. 

Recording Secretary — L. H. Parsons. 

Wayne County Colonization Society — organized at Bethany, April IGth, 

1838. 
President — Hon. Moses Thomas. 
Secretary — E. W. Hamblin, Esq. 

Beaver County Colonization Society. 
President — James Allison, Esq. 
Secretary — Mr. L. B. Williams. 

Fayette County Colonization Society — organized March 5th, 1838, 

President — Hon. Anuiiew Stewaht. 

Uniontoxvn Colo7iization Society has thirty members — annual subscription 
$103 50. President, John Dawson, Esq. ; Secretary Joshua B. Howell, Esq. 

George's Creek. — Thenumber of members not reported — said to be large — 
amount of subscription $80. President, James Browxfield ; Secretary, H. W. 
Core. 

Germantown has thirty-three members — amount of subscription $21 75. 
President, Jacob DEFENEAroH ; Secretary, Thomas Wilson. 

jyiasontoum has seventy-six members — annual subscription $50. Presi- 
dent, Anukew C. Johnson ; Secretary, Elisha Longhead. 

Dunlnp's Creek — number of members not reported — annual subscription 
$28 50. President, Gen. Gideon John ; Secretary, James Craft. 

Brownsville has twenty-seven members — annual subscription $47. Presi- 
dent, Michael Sowers, Esq. ; Secretary, W. Y. Roberts. 

Connelsville, the largest and most efficient society in the county, has one 
hundred and twenty-nine members — annual subscription $200. President, 
Daitiel Rogers ; Secretary, Thomas G. Ewing. 



48 

East Liberty has thirty members — annual subscription $15. President, 
John McBuhnet ; Secretary, Joseph McCoy. 

Perryopolis has thirty members — annual subscription $48. President, 
James Fuller, Esq. ; Secretary, Ellis Simpkins. 

iawe/^i;/^ has thirty-six members — annual subscription $52 75. Presi- 
dent, Samuel A. Kussell ; Secretary, Robert Smith. 

Bedford County Colonization Society — organized Sept. 25, 1837. 
President — William REiifOLDs, 
Secretary — A. J. Cline. 

Cumberland County Colonization Society— Carlisle. 
President — Hon. Judge Reed. 
Secretary — Prof. John L. Carey. 

Chester County Colonization Society— organized at West Chester, Oct- 1 838. 
Officers not reported. 

Beaver Falls — organized at New Brighton, Dec. 1, 1837. 
President — Richard Leech, Esq. 
Secretary — C. W. Bloss, Esq. 

Waynesborough Colonization Society — organized Aug. 7, 1837. 
President — John Flatsagan, Esq. 
Secretaries — M. M- Stoner, Esq., Geo, Bessore, Esq. 

Young Men's Colonization Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church — or- 
ganized at Philadelphia, 1838. 
President — William A. Budd, Esq. 
Vice President— T. K. Collins. 
Treasurer — William C. Poulson. 
Corresponding Secretary — William H. Gilder. 
Recording Secretary — R. W. Dodson, 

Colonization Society of the City of Philadelphia — organized June 27, 1838. 
President — Dr. J. H. Burgin. 
Secretary — G. W. Reed. 

Bethany and Herriotteville Colonization Society — organized Oct. 1, 1838. 
President — Rev. Mr. Jeffrey. 
Secretary — John M'Dowell. 

Union and Montrose Colonization Society — organized 1837. 
President — Rev. A. S. Fulton. 
Treasurer — Alex. Riddle. 

Elizabethtown Colonization Society — organized Sept. 6, 1838. 
President — Rev. Mr. M'Kinsblt, 

Johnstown Colonization Society — organized Aug. 6, 1838. 
President — Moses Canaan. 
Vice President — George W. Kern, 
Treasurer — Frederick Kaylor. 
Secretary — Frederick Leyde. 

Ladies Baptist Colonization Society of Philadelphia, 1837. 
Secretary — Eleanor Anne Jones. 



49 

Female Colonization Society of Wilmington, Delaware. 
Secretary — Miss Lucinda Hall. 

Of the following societies full reports have not been received. 

Shippensburg Colonization Society. 

Chartiers and Cannonsburg Colonization Society. 

Lebanon Congregation Colonization Society, Aug. 27, 1838. 

Bethel Colonization Society, Aug. 25, 1838. 

Bostram Colonization Society. 

Freeport Colonization Society, Aug. 1838. 

Saltsburg Colonization Society, Aug. 1838. 

Congruity Colonization Society. 

Polk Run Colonization Society. 

Blairsville Colonization Society — George S. Mondell, Secretary. 

Great Valley, Chester County. 

Yardleyville, Bucks County. 

Bristol, Bucks County. 

There are several other societies in the State whose names have not been 
reported. 



A List of Manumissions hi connection with Colonization. 

A lady, near Charlestown, Va. liberated all her slaves, ten in number, to be 
sent to Liberia ; and moreover purchased two, whose families were among her 
slaves. For the one she gave $450, and for the other $350. 

The late William Fitzhugh bequeathed their freedom to all his slaves, after 
a certain fixed period, and ordered that their expenses should be paid to what- 
ever place they should think proper to go. And, " as an encouragement to 
them to emigrate to the American colony on the coast of Africa, where," adds 
the will, " I believe their happiness will be more permanently secured, I de- 
sire not only that the expenses of their emigration be paid, but that the sum 
of fifty dollars be paid to each one so emigrating, on his or her arrival in 
Africa." 

David Shriver, ef Frederick county, Maryland, ordered by his will, that all 
his slaves, thirty in number, should be emancipated, and that proper provision 
should be made for the comfortable support of the infirm and aged, and for the 
instruction of the young in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and in some art 
or trade, by which they might acquire the means of support. 

Col. Smith, an old revolutionary officer, of Sussex county, Va., ordered in 
his will that all his slaves, seventy or eighty in number, should be emancipat- 
ed ; and bequeathed above $5000 to defray the expense of transporting them 
to Liberia. 

Patsey Morris, of Louisa co., Va., directed by will that all her slaves, sixteen 
in number, should be emancipated, and left $500 to fit them out, and defray 
the expense of their passage. 

The schr. Randolph, which sailed from Georgetown, S. C, had on board 26 
slaves, liberated by a benevolent individual near Cheraw. 

Of 105 emigrants, who sailed in the brig Doris, from Baltimore and Norfolk, 
62 were emancipated on condition of being conveyed to Liberia. 

Sampson David, late a member of the legislature of Tennessee, provided by 
will that all his slaves, 22 in number, who are mostly young, should be libe- 
rated in 1840, or sooner, at his wife's decease, if she died before that period. 

Herbert B. Elder, of Petersburg, Va., bequeathed their freedom to all his 
slaves, twenty in number, with directions that they should be conveyed to Li- 
beria by the first opportunity. 

A gentleman, in Georgia, has recently left 49 slaves free, on condition of 
their removal to Liberia. 

7 



50 

Mrs. Elizabeth Morris, of Bourbon co., Va., provided by will for the emanci- 
pation of her slaves, about forty in number. 

David Patterson, of Orange county, N. C, freed eleven slaves to be sent 
to Liberia. 

Rev. Fletcher Andrew gave freedom to twenty, who constituted most of his 
property, for the same purpose. 

Nathaniel Crenshaw, near Richmond, liberated sixty slaves, with a view to 
have them sent to Liberia. 

Rev. Robert Cox, Suffolk co., Va., provided by his will for the emancipa- 
tion of all his slaves, upwards of thirty, and left several hundred dollars to pay 
their passage to Liberia. 

Joseph Leonard Smith, of Frederick co., Md., liberated twelve slaves, who 
sailed from Baltimore for Liberia. 

Of 107 coloured persons who sailed in the Carolinian from Norfolk for Li- 
beria, 45 were emancipated on condition of being sent there. 

In the brig Criterion, which sailed from Norfolk for Liberia on the 2d Aug. 
1831, there were forty-six persons who had been liberated on condition of pro- 
ceeding to Liberia — 18 by Mrs. Greenfield, near Natchez ; 8 by Mr. Williams, 
of Elizabeth City, N. C. ; 7 by Gen. Jacocks, of Perquimans, Ohio ; 4 by 
Thomas Davis, Montgomery co. Miss. ; 2 by two other individuals ; and 5 by 
some of the Quakers in North Carolina. Of those liberated slaves, 2 only 
were above 40 years of age, 31 were under 35, and 22 under 20. 

A gentleman in N. C. last year, gave freedom to all his slaves, 14 in num- 
ber, and provided 20 dollars each, to pay their passage to Liberia. 

Mrs. J. of Mercer county, Kentucky, and her two sons, one a clergyman, 
and the other a physician, lately offered the Colonization Society sixty slaves, 
to be conveyed to Liberia. 

Henry Robertson, of Hampton, Va., bequeathed their freedom to seven 
slaves, and fifty dollars to each, to aid in their removal to Liberia. 

William Fletcher, of Perquimans, N. C, ordered by will that his slaves, 
twelve in number, should be hired out for a year after his death, to earn 
wherewith to pay for their conveyance to Liberia. 

A gentleman in Kentucky, lately wrote to the secretary of the Society, " I 
will willingly give up twelve or fifteen of my coloured people at this time ; and 
so on gradually, till the whole, about sixty, are given up, if means for their 
passage can be afforded." 

On board the Harriet, from Norfolk, of one hundred and sixty emigrants, 
between forty and fifty had been slaves, emancipated on condition of being 
sent to Africa. 

In addition to these instances, several others might be added, particularly 
that of Richard Bibb, Esq. of Kentucky, who proposes to send sixty slaves to 
Liberia — two gentlemen in Missouri, who desire to send eleven slaves — a lady 
in Kentucky offers forty — the Rev. John C. Burress, of Alabama, intends pre- 
paring all his slaves for colonization — the Rev. William L. Breckenridge, of 
Kentucky, manumitted eleven slaves, who sailed a few weeks ago from New 
Orleans. 

In this work of benevolence the society of Friends, as in so many other 
cases, have nobly distinguished themselves, and assumed a prominent attitude. 
They have, in North Carolina, liberated no less than 652 slaves, whom they 
had under their care, besides, as says my authority, an unknown number of 
children, husbands and wives, connected with them by consanguinity, and of 
whom, part went to Canada, part to Liberia, part to Hayti, and a portion to 
Ohio. In the performance of those acts of Liencvolence they expended $12,759. 
Thpy had rpmaining under iheir care, in December, 1830, 402 slaves, for 
whom similar arrangements were to be made. 

Out of 404 emigrants who sailed for Monrovia in the year 1831, one hun- 
dred and eighty-nins were manumitted by their masters on condition of their 
removal to Liberia. 



51 

In May, 1832, the ship Jupiter sailed from Norfolk, Va., with 172 emigrants, 
nifieti/-07ie of whom were emancipated slaves. 

The brig America left Norfolk in June, 1832, having on board //i!ee?i freed- 
men manumitted by one person. 

On board the Hercules, which sailed from Savannah, Georgia, on the 6th of 
January, 1833, were tweriti/'three manumitted slaves. 

On the same day with the Hercules the ship Lafayette sailed from Balti- 
more with 149 emigrants— ;?/7et'« of whom were manumitted slaves. 

The brig Roanoke left Norfolk on the 4th of February, 1833, with 137 pas- 
sengers— o?!e hundred of the number being manumitted slaves. 

In April, 1833, the Ajax sailed from New Orleans with 150 emigrants- 
more than one hundred of whom were manumitted for the purpose of going 
to Liberia. 

The ship Jupiter sailed from Baltimore in Nov. 1833, with 50 emigrants— 
fourtif-four of whom were manumitted slaves. 

ThuUj-Jive manumitted slaves sailed on board of the brig Argus on the 25th 
Nov. from Norfolk. The whole expedition consisted of 51 persons. 

The ship Ninus, despatched by the Young s Men's Colonization Society 
from Norfolk, in October, 1834, carried out one hundred and tiuenlij-six 
emigrants — all manumitted slaves. 

The brig Luna, which sailed from New York in July, 1836, had on board 
ffty emigrants, manumitted on the express condition of their going to Liberia. 

On board the barque Marine, which sailed from Wilmington, N. C. for 
Bassa Cove, in Dec. 1837, there were 72 emigrants— about sixty of whom 
were manumitted slaves. 

Eighteen slaves, liberated by Dr. Shuman, of Stokes county, N. C. sailed 
on board the Rondout in December, 1836. They were liberally provided for 
by their benevolent master. 

Mrs. Tubman, of Georgia, in May, 1837, liberated sixty slaves, and pro- 
vided liberally for the expense of their passage and settlement in Liberia. 

In the ship Emperor about one /m/i^rcfi emancipated slaves sailed from Nor- 
folk in December, 1837. These werepiincipally from the estates of the Rev. 
John Stockdele, of Madison county, Va., and John Smith, of Essex county, in 
the same state. 

Since 1831, when the colonization law was passed in Maryland, there have 
been ff teen hundred and eighty-one slaves manumitted in that State, and re- 
gistered as emigrants for Liberia. . 

From fifty to one hundred manumitted slaves have emigrated from Missis- 
sippi within the past year to the new colony of Greenville. 

The foregoing list is far from being complete, as in many instances the re- 
cord of manumissions has not been preserved, and in some cases the liberated 
slaves have not been distinguished from the free coloured people composing 
expeditions. It would swell this list to an inconvenient length were we to add 
the numerous oifers made by slave-holders to emancipate their slaves on con- 
dition of the means necessary for their passage to Liberia being furnished. 
There are 7na7iy hundreds at this moment positively offered on this condition, 
whose freedom will be given at any moment the Societies may be able to re- 
ceive them And there is abundant reason to believe that there are from/ve 
to ten thousand more whom their masters are preparing for freedom and set- 
tlement in Liberia. 



The following account of Liberia is given by Mr. Buchanan, who resided 
about a year in Africa, and made himself familiar with the condition of all 
the settlements. 

Liberia as it is. 

Liberia extends from the St. Paul's river on the north-west to the Cavally 
river on the south-east, a distance of tiiuek iiundued miles along the coast. 



52 

Its extent inland is from ten to forty miles. Four separate colonies are now 
included within its limits, viz. 

MojfROTiA, established by the American Colonization Society, including 
the towns of JMonrovia, JVetw Georgia, Caldwell, Millsbiirgh, and Marshall. 

Bassa Cote, established by the United Colonization Societies of New York 
and Pennsylvania. This colony includes Bassa Cove and Edina. The lat- 
ter village was founded by the American Colonization Society, and lately ceded 
to the United Societies. 

Greenville, established by the Mississippi Colonization Society at 

SlNOU. 

Maryland, established by the Maryland Colonization Society at Cape 
Palmas. 

In the NINE VILLAGES enumerated above, there is a population of about 
5000 — all of course coloured persons, of which three thousand five hun- 
dred are emigrants from this country, and the remainder natives of Africa, 
mostly youth, who have come into the colonies to learn " Merica fash," and 
make themselves " white men" by conforming to the habits of civilization, and 
becoming subject to our laws. 

The commerce of the colonies, though in its infancy, is already extensive. 
From $80,000 to §125,000 is exported annually, in camwood, ivory, palm oil, 
and hides ; and an equal or greater amount of the manufactures and produc- 
tions of Europe and America are brought into the colonies in return. Mon- 
rovia, which is the largest town and principal seaport, carries on a considera- 
ble coasting trade by means of small vessels built and owned by her own ci- 
tizens. Not less than twelve or fifteen of these, averaging from ten to thirty 
tons burden, manned and navigated by the colonists, are constantly engaged 
in a profitable trade along seven hundred miles of the coast. 

The harbour of Monrovia is seldom clear of foreign vessels ; more than se- 
venty of which, from the United States, England, France, Sweden, Portugal 
and Denmark, touch there annually. 

Bassa Cove and Cape Palmas have both good harbours, and possess great 
advantages for commerce. Already their waters are gladdened by the frequent 
presence of traders from other countries, and in a few years, when the hand of 
enterprise shall have developed the rich mines of wealth which nature has so 
abundantly provided there, these growing towns will become the centres of an 
extensive and important business. 

SiNou, too, possesses an excellent harbour, and is the natural outlet of a 
vast tract of rich and productive country. Under the fostering hand ot its en- 
terprising founders it must soon become an important link in the great mari- 
time chain of Americo-African establishments. „The productions of the 
country, wliich may be raised in any quantity for exportation, are coffee, cot- 
ton, sugar, rice, indigo, palm oil, together with the gums, dije-iuoods, ivory, 
&c., which are collected from the forests. 

The state of morals in the colonies is emphatically of a high order. Sab- 
bath-breaking, drunkenness, profanity and quarrelling are vices almost un- 
known in Liberia. A temperance society formed in 1834 numbered in a few 
weeks after its organization 500 members ; at that time more than one-filth of 
the whole population. 

At Bassa Cove and Cape Palmas the sale and use of ardent spirits are for- 
bidden by law. In the other colonies the ban of public opinion so effectually 
prohibits dram drinking that no respectable person would dare indulge an ap- 
petite so disreputable. 

There are eighteen churches in Liberia, viz : at Monrovia 4, New Georgia 
2, Caldwell 2, Millsburgh 2, Edina 2, Bassa Cove 3, Marshall 1, Cape Pal- 
mas 2. Of these 8 are Baptist, 6 Methodist, 3 Presbyterian, and 1 Episco- 
palian. 

As there are forty clergymen in the colonies ; all the churches are not only 
regularly supplied with preaching, but religious meetings are weekly held in 
many of the native villages. 



53 

Eight hundred of the colonists, or more than one-fiflh of ihc whole population, 
are professed Christians, in good standing with the several churches with which 
they are connected. As might be expected, where so large a proportion of the 
people are pious, the general tone of society is religious. No where is the Sab- 
bath more strictly observed, or the places of worship better attended. Sun- 
day schools and Bible classes are established generally in the churches, into 
which, in many cases, the native children are gathered with those of the co- 
lonists. 

There are twelve weekly day schools in all the settlements, supported general- 
ly by education and missionary societies in this country. The teachers in most 
cases are coloured persons. A laudable thirst for knowledge pervades the 
community, and a great desire is expressed for an academic institution, to- 
ward the support of which they would contribute liberally ; though as yet they 
are scarcely able to establish one single handed. 

In some places, as at Bassa Cove, literary societies are formed for mutual 
improvement, much on the plan of village lyccums in this country. 

At Bassa Cove and Monrovia there are public libraries for the use of the 
people. The one at the former place numbers 1200 or 1500 volumes. 

A monthly newspaper is published at Monrovia. The articles in this paper 
afford good testimony of the general intelligence of the people, and reflect 
great credit upon the talented editor, a coloured man. 

There are at present 25 or 30 white persons connected with the various 
missionary and education societies, or attached to the colonies as physicians, 
&c. The government of Liberia is essentially republican. All the officers, 
except the governor, (who is appointed by the Colonization Society) being 
chosen by the people. Elections are held annually in every village, and are 
conducted with great propriety and decorum. A vice governor, legislative 
councillors, a high sheriff, constables, &c. are some of the officers elected an- 
nually. The militia is well organized and efficient. The officers and men 
exhibit a degree of enthusiasm in the performance of their duty seldom wit- 
nessed elsewhere ; and on field days their neat and orderly appearance, their 
thorough discipline, and the promptness and precision of their evolutions, 
command the admiration of every observer. 

There are a number of volunteer corps regularly uniformed and equipped. 
These of course are the elite of the Liberi i militia ; and indeed many of them 
would lose nothing by a comparison with our own city guards. 



From the Liberia Herald. 

PUBLIC MEETING. 

Wednesday, 29th Sept., 183G. — Pursuant to notice the citizens of Monro- 
via met in the public school-house. J. C, Barbour, Esq. in the chair, and 
Mr. Wm. N. Lewis, Secretary. Mr. S. Benedict was requested to state the 
object of the meeting, who said that it was to record a resolution expressive of 
our opinion of colonization. 

1. On motion of the Kev. J. Revey, 

Jiesolved, That this meeting entertain the warmest gratitude for what the 
Colonization Society have done for the people of colour, and for us particu- 
larly, and that we regard the scheme as entitled to the highest confidence of 
every man of colour. 

2. On motion of S. Benedict, Esq. 

Jiesolved, That we return our grateful acknowledgments to Gerrit Smith, 
A. Tappan, Esqrs., and other early and devoted friends of colonization ; names 
for which we shall ever cherish the highest esteem ; that we hear with regret, 
from misrepresentation or want of accurate information, they have abandoned 
the noble scheme ; and that we hope the day is not lar distant in which they 
will again reunite their energies to advance the high and benevolent object. 



54 

3. On motion of Mr. H. Teage, 

Resolved, That this meeting regard the colonizing institution as one of the 
highest, holiest, and most benevolent enterprises of the present day ; that as a 
plan for the amelioration of the coloured race it takes the precedence of all 
that have been presented to the attention of the modern world ; that in its ope- 
rations it is peaceful and safe; in its tendencies beneficial and advantageous ; 
that it is entitled to the highest veneration and unbounded confidence of every 
man of colour ; and what it has already accomplished demands our devout 
thanks and gratitude to those noble and disinterested philanthropists that com- 
pose it, as being, under God, the greatest earthly benefactors of a despised and 
depressed portion of the human family. 

The hour being late, on motion of Rev, B. R. Wilson, 

Resolved, That the meeting adjourn until to-morrow, at 10 o'clock A. M. 
to the First Baptist Meeting-house. 

Thursday, 1 0th. — Met according to adjournment. 

4. On motion of James Brown, Esq. 

Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be presented to those ladies of 
the United States, particularly to those of New York, Philadelphia and Rich- 
mond, for their disinterested efforts to educate the children of this colony ; and 
that they be assured that, in no department of the colony do the effects of co- 
lonization shine more conspicuously than in the schools supported by their 
benevolence. 

5. On motion of Dr. J. W. Prout, 

Resolved, That this meeting entertain grateful remembrance of General Ro- 
bert G. Harper of Baltimore, an early and devoted friend of colonization ; also 
of the name of the late Daniel Murray, Esq. of Baltimore, and that we regard 
the Colonization Society and its friends as powerfully efficient in elevating 
the man of colour. 

Whereas it has been widely and maliciously circulated, in the United States 
of America, that the inhabitants of this colony are unhappy in their situation, 
and anxious to return : 

6. On motion of Rev. B. R. Wilson, 

Resolved, That the report is false and malicious, and originated only in a 
design to injure the colony, by calling off the support and sympathy of its 
friends : that, so far from a desire to return, we would regard such an event as 
the greatest calamity that could befall us. 

7. On motion of Rev. G. R. McGill, 

Resolved, That the name of Rev. R. R. Gurley never be forgotten. 

8. On motion of S. Benedict, Esq., 

Resolved, That we entertain lively feelings of gratitude towards H. R. Shel- 
don, Esq. for his munificent donation towards the erection of a high school in 
this colony. 

9. On motion of Mr. Uriah Tyner, 

Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting are due to the members of the 
Colonization Society, for their unwearied zeal to promote the intersst of this 
community. 

10. On motion of Mr. Lewis Ciples, 

Resolved, That this meeting entertain the highest respect for the memory 
of the late Thomas S. Grimke, of South Carolina, for his persevering efforts 
in behalf of the Colonization Society. 

11. On motion of Rev. Amos Herring, 

Resolved, That this meeting entertains the deepest gratitude for the mem- 
bers of the Colonization Society, for the organization and continuation of an 
enterprise so noble and praiseworthy as that of restoring to the blessings of li- 
berty, hundreds and thousands of the sore oppressed and long neglected sons 
of Africa ; that we believe it the only institution that can, under existing cir- 
cumstances, succeed in elevating the coloured population ; and that advance- 
ment in agriculture, mechanism, and science, will enable us speedily to aspire 
to a rank with other nations of the earth. 



55 

12. On motion of Mr. H. B. Matthews, 

Success to the ivheels of colonization ; may they roll over every opposer, 
and roll on, until all the oppressed sons of Africa shall be rolled honie ! 

13. On motion of Mr. David Moore, 

Resolved, That we recollect, with peculiar satisfaction, the active part 
which the benevolent in the state of Mississippi have taken in the welfare of 
this colony. 

14. On motion of Major L. R. Johnson, 

Resolved, That this meeting cherish the most grateful remembrance of the 
name of the late Rev. R. Finley, of New Jersey, the founder and indefatigable 
patron of this colony. 

15. On motion of J. J. Roberts, Esq., 

Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be presented to the friends of this 
colony in England. 

Onmotionof Mr. Dixon B. Brown, 

Resolved, That the resolutions of this meeting be published in the Liberia 
Herald. 

Sentiments or Colonization. 

Sentiments of J\[i\ Divid White. — I arrived in Africa on the 24th of May, 
1838 : at that time the colony was involved in war with the circumjacent sa- 
vages. Immediately on landing I had to shoulder my musket, and do other 
military duty of fatigue and parade, extremely burdensome to one altogether 
unaccustomed to such duties. The circumstances of the colony were trying 
in the extreme. But never have I seen the moment in which I repined at 
coming to the colony. My object in coming was liberty, for which I am 
willing to endure greater hardships than those I have already encountered. 
And under the firm conviction that Africa is the only place, under existing 
circumstances, where the man of colour can enjoy the inestimable blessings of 
liberty and equality, I feel grateful beyond expression to the American Colo- 
nization Society for preparing this peaceful asylum. 

Sentitnents of .Mr. George Baxter. — I beg the liberty, on this occasion, to 
express my deep gratitude to the American Colonization Society, for the great 
deliverance effected by them of myself and family. I thank God that he ever 
put it in their hearts to seek out this free soil, on which I have been so ho- 
noured to set my feet. I and my family were born in Charleston, South Ca- 
rolina, under the appellation of free people ; but freedom we never knew until, 
by the benevolence of the Colonization Society, we were conveyed to the 
shores of Africa. My language is too poor to express the gratitude I entertain 
for the Colonization Society: I, therefore, pray that God will strengthen their 
hands, make daily accessions to their numbers, and advance to complete suc- 
cess the honourable cause in which they are engaged. 

Sentiments of JVlr. R. jyiattheius. — I came to Liberia in the year 1832, in 
the brig American, Captain Abels. My place of residence was the city of 
Washington, D. C, where I passed for a freeman. But I can now say I 
was never free until I landed on the shores of Africa : I further state that Af- 
rica, so far as I am acquainted with the world, is the only place where the 
people of colour can enjoy true and rational liberty. I feel grateful to the 
Colonization Society for what they have done, and are still doing, for the man 
of colour. 

On motion of Mr. H. Teage, 

Resolved, That this meeting view with regret the degree to which the anti- 
colonizationists of America carry their opposition. That they regard the op- 
position of the anti-celonizationists as detrimental to the true interest of the co- 
loured people generally. That their unmeasured abuse of the colonization 
scheme is unholy and unjust. That the degree to which they uniformly slan- 
der and misrepresent this colony goes a great way to discredit their profes- 
sion of disinterested benevolence ; and we beseech them, by all that we suflcr- 
ed in America, by all we have sulfered here, by all the bright prospects before 
us, and by a regard to their own oharacter, to scandalize and vilify us no 
more. 



56 



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